37 of 45 - Journalistic Privileges My Ass

[aggienaut]

   So I was leafing through the paper today and came a cross an editorial about the Times reporter who exposed a CIA operative and is being charged for refusing to name her source. The editorial of course talked about "public right to know," "noblist of journalistic traditions," and "journalistic priviledge," and urged readers to mount a letter writing campaign in favour of the journalist.

   The stupidity of coverage of this issue has been offending me for quite some time now. When a criminal or other individual voluntarily divulges information about a crime or criminal activity that had already occurred or was currently occurring, there is no reason to persecute the journalist, because they are in no way facilitating the crime. In this case however, the crime IS the journalist's revealing of information.
   And all this "public right to know" is out the window because its in "the public"'s interest NOT to have the identities of secret agents working for them to be revealed. This information only compromised American intellegence operations and endangered our agent's life.

   And I think in general the American population at least senses these aspects of the situation, but unfortunately, this is also a case where all major media is inherently biased. Its about a member of the media and alleged media "rights," so what one reads in newspapers and suchforth is overwhelmingly biased in favour of the journalist in question.

   In conclusion the journalist has committed a serious crime, a crime that has compromised United States national security. The journalist should be summarily shot for treason.
   "Journalistic privilege" by no means extends to a right for journalists to commit crimes.


In other news: Nothing works on my laptop now except for internet browsing, but even mozilla crashes every five to ten minutes. Fortunately I've evacuated nearly everything from it onto this computer.


Picture of the Day

   I figured on the 4th of July every other aspiring photographer would be trying to get nice shots of fireworks in action, so I looked for something more unique... 4th of July traffic!
   This shot is looking north up Olympiad (directly to the right of Lake Mission Viejo here!), also see looking south from same point. To appreciate how slow those cars are moving, consider that the picture was taken at a 1/2 second exposure time and the cars have negligible speed-blur.

Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Today: Skanking at Diedrichs - which is the act of rocking out to ska music, not the act of being a skank.

Comments

[sivart13.livejournal.com]

I DISAGREE

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Your an enemy of the people!

I kid I kid.

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

You're even

[rote.livejournal.com]

I don't care what The Man's The Law has to say. Anyone who exposes a viper, whatever their reasons, should be exempt from any sort of punishment.

Indecent Exposure of Vipers

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

well it depends on whose viper is being exposed. If you were the government and someone exposed one of your agents, wouldn't you give them the proverbial banning of a lifetime?

but wait - she didn't commit the crime!

[lassen-hiker.livejournal.com]

The journalist who just went to jail did not reveal the name of the CIA agent - she didn't even write the story! The journalist who did (Novak, I think) has not even been called to testify (or perhaps he has already cooperated with the grand jury). I agree that he should be in trouble for publishing her name.

Re: but wait - she didn't commit the crime!

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

so what part did the person in jail play?

Re: but wait - she didn't commit the crime!

[lassen-hiker.livejournal.com]

The reporter (who is now jailed) spoke with someone who was a source of information...and she promised that person that she would keep their identity confidential. She did not end up writing about this conversation. But someone else must have told the grand jury that the reporter spoke with this information source (and is holding her in comtempt of court for not revealing the identity of this source of information).

For this reporter to break that confidence would be a major ethical lapse...and could erode the power of the press to obtain such information if potential information sources don't believe that they can trust a reporter to keep their identity confidential.

I think it's really lousy that she's in jail while the reporter that published the name of the CIA agent in the paper goes scot free!

Re: but wait - she didn't commit the crime!

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

In kind of a related situation legally speaking, after the first time the ASUCD Senate tried to remove me from my Chief Justiceship, the government administrative office ("SGAO") accidently released to me the confidential transcript of the Senate deliberations, which I subsequently wrote about in my livejournal. During the second removal hearing the following week the biggest issue they charged me with was in publishing this information which was supposed to be secret (from me!). Needless to say I investigated the legal aspects of the situation and it seems the fault was with whomever released it to me, not me, since I had been under no responsibility to keep it secret (indeed I was the only person it really wasn't supposed to reach) and the breach occurred before it got to me.


As to the CIA case in light of the above, I would say the crime was committed by the person who divulged the information rather than the person who published it. This in my opinion is not at all "the power of the press to obtain such information" as there is zero public good in obtaining the information. Obtaining the information therefore is in itself an "ethical lapse" since they're journalizing for the sake of breaking something controvercial at the EXPENCE of the public good and cost of actually and appreciably furthering the commission of a real crime.
   Furthermore, as the informant's divulgence of the information was NOT something one should want to encourage, it should not be protected by the "journalistic privilege" which is meant to encourage divulgence of information. Therefore, under no special circumstances, the journalist who knows who the informant was is fully in contempt of the court.

[xxjack12xx.livejournal.com]

You just love taking picture don't you :P

pictures

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

true, actually.

Re: pictures

[xxjack12xx.livejournal.com]

I have a radio recording of Lars Frederiksen and the Ramones interview at http://ssh.serveftp.com/~jack/completecontrolshows along with a bunch of others. Still waiting for Flogging Molly to show :)