During WWII there was a phrase adopted around the nation by our patriotic greatest generation: "Loose Lips Sink Ships". It was intended to be a reminder that in time of war, our enemies were always listening for information to help them identify troop movements with designs to kill them. Those were patriotic times.
Today however, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a law on a 13-6 vote called the "Free Flow of Information Act". Sponsored by Arlen Specter, Chuck Schumer, Richard Luger and Lindsey Graham, the bill was sold as a way to protect journalists and their sources.
Several amendments offered by republicans intended to strengthen the bill were defeated. Instead what the committee passed is legislation which will make it nearly impossible to prosecute those who disclose "confidential" government secrets, even in time of war.
Republicans offered a series of amendments intended to protect, for example, the secrecy of troop movements and battle plans, but these were all voted down by the Democrats. What is most troubling to me about the act is that it creates, in effect, a privilege to leak classified information. Section 2(A)(2)(iii) dictates when law enforcement agencies can obtain the source of a leak in such cases:
(iii) in a criminal investigation or prosecution of an unauthorized disclosure of properly classified information by a person with authorized access to such information, such unauthorized disclosure has caused or will cause significant and articulable harm to the national security;
Federal employees with access to classified information agree not to leak that information, and can be subject to criminal prosecution if they do. This shield law, however, would erect a new, much higher threshold: in order to find out who leaked to a journalist (usually a reporter from the New York Times or the Washington Post), even assuming that the leak was itself a crime, law enforcement would have to satisfy a federal judge that the leak has caused, or will cause, "significant and articulable harm to the national security." That is a remarkably high threshold. While the "Free Flow" act does not explicitly legalize leaks that may not satisfy that high standard, it likely will make such leaks de facto impossible to prosecute. This is, apparently, what the Democrats want.
Don't you feel so much safer now with these clowns in charge?
As long as it is still legal for the VP to out a CIA agent, who cares ?
Posted by: Redman | December 12, 2009 at 01:12 PM