If you haven’t already, you should read Glenn Greenwald’s full take, published earlier this week, on the Obama DoJ’s astonishing invasion of Fox “News” reporter James Rosen’s work as a journalist by naming him as an unindicted co-conspirator in order to access his email, phone records and more in the course of the Obama Administration’s criminal investigation into an alleged leak of classified material by State Department official Steven Jin-Woo Kim.
(For a somewhat different take on the matter, Jack Shafer’s column at Reuters “What was James Rosen thinking?” is smart and worth reading, even as I find it uncomfortably close to flat out blaming the victim.)
To his credit, Greenwald’s consistent stance over the years on this issue — from his documentation of outrageous attacks on journalists and journalism during the Bush Administration, to outrageous attacks on journalists and journalism during the Obama Administration (much of which he references in his report linked above) — earn him a lot of cred here. It has also earned him scorn from both the Right and supporters of the Obama Administration.
What has made all of this additionally amusing/maddening over the past week, however, has been the hypocritical turn by the Right and Fox “News” — now that one of its own has been caught in the buzz-saw. Suddenly, they are outraged — outraged! — over the chill on journalism and journalistic freedom and the assault on the First Amendment now that it’s the Obama Administration that is doing it and, I should add, now that it’s being done to them. Recall, they didn’t much care — supported it, in fact — when there were similar attacks on journalists at New York Times and Washington Post by the Bush Administration. Or, more recently, under Obama, against journalists like Julian Assange at WikiLeaks just a year or two ago. As discussed during my 2010 interview with legendary “Pentagon Papers” whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, then Fox “News” contributor Sarah Palin, for example, called for Assange to be hunted down like a terrorist “with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders”.
True, the Obama Administration has taken the Bush War on Journalism to a whole new and disturbing level, but essentially he’s simply continuing — arguably, fulfilling — the long-stated, long-supported-by-the-Right positions of the previous Administration. And they are the exact same positions they supported even just a year or two ago when calling for the prosecution of Assange!
It’s a pretty clever win-win scam by the Right, in truth. Slam Obama as being “soft on national security!”, and then yell and scream about it (justifiably so, in this case) when he takes action to prevent leaks “in the name of national security”.
In an update to his full story, Greenwald added the following thoughts along with a short Meet the Press video from 2006 that you need to see. While watching it, please note how favorite Rightwing/Bush Administration son Bill Bennett was pushing for everything that the Right and Fox “News” now claim to be outraged about today. (They really should be outraged about it today, by the way. But they should have been equally outraged about it back when they and Bennett were actually arguing in support of heading straight down the slippery slope we are now gliding down at breakneck speed)…
UPDATE 5/24/2013: BRAD BLOG commenter “Billy” has made a serious charge that Greenwald was “lying” in his column cited above. I’ve asked Greenwald for a response to that charge and have now posted it here.
Moreover, this additionally disturbing information about the Rosen case has just been reported today…
From Ryan Lizza at New Yorker:
…
[Ronald C.] Machen [, Jr., the U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting Stephen Jin-Woo Kim] added [in his secret argument to the court] that “some investigations are continued for many years because, while the evidence is not yet sufficient to bring charges, it is sufficient to have identified criminal subjects and/or criminal activity serious enough to justify continuation of the investigation.â€
Machen insisted the investigation would be compromised if Rosen was informed of the warrant, and also asked the court to order Google not to notify Rosen that the company had handed over Rosen’s e-mails to the government.
…
The new details indicate that the government wanted the option to search Rosen’s e-mails repeatedly if the F.B.I. found further evidence implicating the reporter in what prosecutors argued was a conspiracy to commit espionage.
Seriously? Is that what folks — like “Billy” in comments below and commenter “StumpTownHero” over at the new Greenwald reponse thread — really want their government doing to reporters? And, if you trust and have justifications for Obama doing it, do you also trust and justify the Bush Administration and similar to doing it? Spying on the emails of reporters for years on end? Really?
Remember during the Iraq war we were getting all these stories from the embedded news reporters on what was going on there. Then it came out that it was propaganda that the Bush administration was feeding the reporters and then the reporters were telling the American people as if it was actually the reporters story. Fox noise is a republican propaganda channel. Their outrage is that they might get tarred for what they do.
I think it’s important to point out that Glenn Greenwald has been lying incessantly about the James Rosen story.
The information passed from Stephen Kim to James Rosen, just a short time earlier, had been gathered by an intelligence operation inside of North Korea. Immediately after receiving said information from Kim, Rosen published it on the internet.
At the very least, this publication not only may have tipped off North Korea to the fact that we had a very effective intelligence operation in place inside of North Korea, but it told them precisely what kind of intelligence we were gathering. This presumably made it very easy for them to eliminate the operation.
At worst, this publication may have cost American intelligence sources their lives.
But Glenn Greenwald, who has pretty much given up on objectivity and fact-based reporting, described Kim’s leak to Rosen as a case of communicating “innocuous information to a journalist – something done every day in Washington.” Clearly it was not.
But Greenwald’s misrepresentations help him make his case, so he will continue to mislead his readers.
It’s understandable that Brad and others have become accustomed to following Glenn’s lead. Glenn used to do some very fine work. But that is no longer the case. Not by a long shot.
Billy @2-
Greenwald says this-
I’m assuming this is part of what you’re calling his “lying. Is that correct? I’d be very interested to learn that Glenn got something so wrong, if that is the case. Could you provide evidence to substantiate your claim, please?
@David Lasagna,
I quoted one of Greenwald’s lies. A very significant one. Did you think that lie would magically go away if you posted something that you believed to be true? I don’t get it.
Glenn Greenwald is now in the same business as Darrell Issa. He’s an opponent of Barack Obama, and he won’t let the truth get in the way of that opposition.
I understand that this will come as a shock to some people, but it’s the plain truth.
Billy @4,
What part of me asking you for evidence to support your assertion that what you SAID was a lie WAS a lie, did you not understand?
Why should anyone believe something just because you said it? That’s what I don’t get.
EVIDENCE, Billy. Again, got any to support your claim?
Billy @ 2 & 4 –
Setting aside your silly partisan argument here (your comparison to Issa is absurd) and the fact that folks can have opinions that differ with yours OR that are simply wrong without being a “liar”, as you charge, I’ve asked Glenn if he’s already responded to the charge you make and, if not, if he’d like to. I’ll let you know if he does.
I don’t know enough details of the actual case — though apparently you do — to know if what was reported by Rosen was “innocuous”, as Glenn saw it, or not. What little I know is that the report confirmed that we have some kind of intel coming out of N. Korea — either human or otherwise. In and of itself, that doesn’t seem particularly shocking, since one would expect that NK already knows we’re spying on them. But if you have evidence to support your charge — that Rosen’s report wasn’t “innocuous” — please feel free to share it.
BTW, the Shafer piece I cited suggests similar. That, if not dangerous, Rosen’s report, in any case, wasn’t worth much on a news level. But, in any case, if you have details above and beyond your *feelings* on this to support your charge, please share them.
I will say the silly Issa comparison does little to shore up your credibility here, however, as anything more than a partisan. But I’m certainly open to actual evidence if you have any.
You don’t seem to be familiar with the subject matter. Why don’t you start by reading James Rosen’s original article. Then you can see how misleading Glenn Greenwald’s article is.
@Brad,
I’m not a partisan; I’m a liberal. And my comparison of Greenwald to Issa is perfectly appropriate. They’re both misleading their constituents in an effort to make a false or exaggerated case against Obama. (By the way, I’m not much of an Obama supporter.)
Furthermore, Greenwald has become a big fan of Issa, as evidenced by his recent appearance on Bill Maher’s show. He believes Issa is doing important work. I don’t agree. I do agree that Congress has a responsibility to investigate these matters, but I don’t think that’s what Issa is doing.
I challenge you to re-read Rosen’s original piece, then try to find anything comparable, as far as revealing national security secrets, in history. I’m not a historian specializing in espionage or intelligence, but when has anybody ever done anything even close to this egregious? And yet Greenwald calls it innocuous?
Billy –
Thanks for the reminder to re-read Rosen’s original piece. I’m goin with both “innocuous” AND of little real news value, as Shafer described it, after re-reading it. Reads kinda like a partisan-as-usual attempt by Fox to find something — anything — that could somehow be seen to harm the administration (“they lost track of the missile parts, they’re so incompetent!!!”)
You’ll have to let me know about the details of the grave threat to our national security — worthy of reading a journalists private emails!!! — that I’m supposed to have easily seen upon re-reading the piece. Maybe I’m still missing it.
P.S. As with your Issa argument, you again over-argue in regard to “anybody ever [doing] anything even close to this egregious?” Other leaks, from the Pentagon Papers to much more recently, such as reporting on NSA spying, to black site prisons, to reporting the name of a covert CIA NOC, for chrissakes, are all arguably FAR worse (and I don’t have any particular problem with any of them, but for the last one.) Not sure who got into your head on this one, but they are doing you no favors.
The Pentagon Papers were reports documenting U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, something Americans needed to see. Nothing egregious there.
I’m not sure, but the rest of the stuff you list seems less comparable. What Cheney did was certainly more egregious, but not comparable.
In any case, I don’t believe you read the Rosen article and came away thinking the information Kim provided to Rosen was innocuous. I know you; and I know you’re much smarter than that.
For instance, Kim and Rosen let the North Koreans know we were receiving intelligence about their plans to launch a missile. Can you think of a scenario where that kind of intelligence stream — an intelligence stream giving us advance notice of of missile launch — might be crucial to national security? Think real hard.
Or how about an intelligence stream telling us about the reprocessing of fuel rods for use in producing weapons grade plutonium? Can you think of any reason that that kind of information might be important to national security? I think you can probably put your finger on it.
And what do you think happened when the North Koreans read the Rosen article? Do you think maybe they made some security changes? I’m thinking yes.
The issue here isn’t that “the GOP is a pile of hypocrites”. We know that. Distracting with “well, those guys did it too!” doesn’t make what Obama’s thugs are doing okay. And what we are learning is that Obama’s fan base is every bit as hypocritical and in many ways worse. Obama was “different” – right? Hope and change? Ha!
Obama is, in essence, a cult leader. No matter what he does a core group will make excuses. The fact that the Left is not enraged by the AP story alone is proof enough….wow…if Bush had done this the “end of all freedom” it would be wall to wall on MSNBC.
Obama kills innocents with drones…..shrugs on the Left.
Obama goes after the press… mumbles, excuses, attacks on victims.
Obama weaponizes the I.R.S….”it was a bad decision to make things easier. Sorry. Oops. ”
Obama jail the maker of an bad anti-Islam video – trampling the man’s rights – crickets on the left. (Imagine, again, if W had done this)
I wonder when the Obama fever will break with these people?…My bet? When he approves the Keystone Pipeline. Watch the last of the Obama cultists go nutters as the cognitive dissonance becomes too much. Or not. Media Matters will no doubt figure out a way to re-write history and blame environmentalists. Orwell would be proud.
Billy said @ 10:
Nothing “egregious”?! While I agree it is not actually egregious, by your standards, it was far more damning and exposed far more methods and means.
Are you kidding? All of those reports exposed intelligence gathering methods and means and the leak reported by the media which exposed a CIA operative (Valerie Plame Wilson) may very much have led to the death of U.S. intelligence assets, and almost certainly to the elimination of various operations meant to monitor the movement of WMD in the Middle East, the very things you decried in your initial comment above!
Of course, all of those were done during Republican Presidencies, so perhaps you don’t find them as egregious.
The article, if its presumed to be accurate, “exposed” that the U.S. has human intelligence and/or signal intelligence (monitoring of communications, etc.) and/or satellite intelligence in, around and/or over North Korea — just as we have in, around and over every “adversary” and even ever friendly country! The article did not, from my reading, specify (other than Sat Intel) how any of the information was collected. So, are you seriously suggesting that North Korea did not already know the U.S. was monitoring them through those three methods? Really?
And the Bush Administration and its supporters were also “thinking yes” when they came down so hard on reporters at NYTimes and WaPo, calling for their prosecution. They made almost the exact same arguments. Those arguments were also made by Republicans (and Democrats) under the Obama Administration in response to WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning.
You are welcome to make those charges — and whether I disagree with you or not doesn’t actually matter here — but only if you supported those very charges when they were made, in the exact same way, by the Bush Administration and its supporters when it was they who used them as justification for eroding the First Amendment and cracking down on journalists and journalism as well.
In any case, I received a direct response from Glenn to your charges, and will be posting it as its own item in a bit later today. Much appreciate the discussion!
John Smart @ 11:
The only part of your comment I care to respond to at the moment is this:
There is no evidence at this time, zero, that he “weaponize[d] the I.R.S.”. That is, in lieu of further information, an absolute, 100% fiction. I’d suggest you read this and this, both published here previously.
Criticize as you like, but please be accurate. Thanks!
@Brad,
The Pentagon Papers were a history of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. It was about telling the American people about the secret wars our government had waged in Southeast Asia. And when it came to methods and sources, I’m pretty sure Daniel (or the reporters he worked with) redacted that stuff.
I’ve always been a huge supporter of Daniel Ellsberg, as well as Bradley Manning, and Wikileaks. I still am. I’m no longer a huge supporter of Glenn Greenwald because he’s no longer interested in reporting as much as he’s interested in advocating.
As I said, Cheney’s actions with respect to Valerie Plame and the CIA were more egregious. You turned that one around on me.
As for the Rosen Article, there are so many points of information (and absences of points of information) in that thing that the North Koreans may have been able to figure out exactly where the information came from.
And the information in the Rosen article doesn’t simply go to observing preparations being made to launch missiles, or preparations being made to produce weapons-grade plutonium. It goes to the PLANNING stages of both (among other things).
This means we probably had an intelligence stream feeding us information (directly or otherwise) from atop the North Korean decision-making hierarchy.
Not innocuous. Quite the opposite.
Billy,
I read Rosen’s article and then read it again to make sure that the nothing that didn’t seemed to be jumping out at me might be observable on another read. Still didn’t see it. Am in complete agreement with Brad and Glenn on this one.
As far as I can tell the “intelligence” in the article is about North Korea working on nuclear weapons capacity and delivery systems, which everyone already knew. Planning? Yes, I’d imagine they’re planning on working on that stuff some more.
Don’t see what you’re in such an uproar about except that you seem very afraid of North Korea.
Glenn Greenwald’s direct response to “Billy” above is now posted here…
The only thing that matters is was the information classified or not. If it was classified both Kim and Rosen are guilty of a crime, it is ILLEGAL to possess and/or disseminate classified unless you have the proper security clearance to do so. First Amendment notwithstanding, I’m not comfortable giving reporters carte blanche to expose out nation’s secrets; they have proven time and again they cannot be trusted to use good sense when they have possession of classified material because their first and only thought is getting a scoop. Remember Judith Miller? Or how about Scooter Libby. These people caused the country great harm in their handling of classified material. If a reporter truly believes they have an important expose on their hands then publish it and accept the risks doing so. If you are writing a series about bank robbery does that mean you be be allowed to rob banks with impunity? Publishing classified material just to be publishing classified material should be a crime and should be prosecuted accordingly. Being a reporter is no shield allowing you to break the law.
Mikhail Hill said @ 17:
I’m sorry, Mikhail, but you have just made up that assertion out of whole cloth. Either that, or you haven’t a clue about American law (and the Constitution, for that matter). There is absolutely no law that makes it “ILLEGAL” for journalists to possess or disseminate classifed information, with or without “proper security clearance to do so.” There is no “security clearance” required for any journalist or news organization to publish classified information.
We went through all of that during the Pentagon Papers and your argument has absolutely no basis in either reality or the law.
We have been discussing this issue at some length in this thread if you’d like to either participate, or become educated on these matters.
The thing that’s awesome about the First Amendment, is that it doesn’t require that you, or anybody else, be “comfortable” with it. It is the law of the land, no matter whether folks like you are “not comfortable” with it. And, in fact, it exists precisely because there is much free speec that people are “not comfortable” with. It is, in fact, meant to protect uncomfortable speech.
There is no “good sense” test for journalists, and it is not up to you, or any President who can and “cannot be trusted to use good sense”.
Yes, neither case has anything to do with Rosen, outrageously, being named a co-conspirator in the Kim case. Scooter Libby was a government official who disclosed classified information (thus, he was found guilty of breaking the law), and Judith Miller, as abhorrent as she is, was never even suggested to have disclosed classified information. Thus, neither of those two people have anything whatsoever to do with this matter.
Again, not familiar with any issue regarding “classified material” having to do with Judith Miller.
What law did Rosen break? You have identified absolutely none. And, the reason for that, of course, is that he broke no law.
Once again, we are discussing this all in another thread. I might suggest you look at this specific of reply of mine over there, as it may help you understand how both the Constitution and the law (specifically the Espionage Act, which requires evidence that someone was attempting to aid an enemy) actually work. It sounds like you have no familiarity with either of those things.
The only thing that matters?
OMFG you journalists are deluded.
The only thing that matters is your PAYCHECK, you crypto scumbag
I find that Journalists are increasingly offering personal opinion in their communications. I don’t want your opinion, just the facts please!