
White House Uses Espionage Act to Pursue Leak Cases - rmanocha
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/business/media/white-house-uses-espionage-act-to-pursue-leak-cases-media-equation.html?hp
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kiba
The government seems to be pursuing the right to know everything about you,
coupled with the right to hide their business and everything they know about
you. The justification is always national security. However, we have no way of
knowing that it warrants national security because we don't know the secret.

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weff
Good old patronizing government. And paternalistic.

"Now child, don't question father's drinking, gambling and violence problems,
you wouldn't understand."

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bh42222
_Jake Tapper, the White House correspondent for ABC News, pointed out that the
administration had lauded brave reporting in distant lands more than once and
then asked, “How does that square with the fact that this administration has
been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive journalism in the United States
by using the Espionage Act to take whistle-blowers to court?”_

 _He then suggested that the administration seemed to believe that “the truth
should come out abroad; it shouldn’t come out here.”_

 _The Obama administration, which promised during its transition to power that
it would enhance “whistle-blower laws to protect federal workers,” has been
more prone than any administration in history in trying to silence and
prosecute federal workers._

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barrkel
I wonder how much of this is down to policy changes, and how much comes from
increased IT fingerprints, monitoring, etc.

In other words, has the motivation to catch leakers increased, or is it just
the capability that has increased?

I think it's probably a mix of the two; I reckon some earlier administrations
would have clamped down on leakers as hard, if they could have.

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talmand
From what I read in the article I believe it's a matter of government
overreach. Some of the details leaked were trivial and to reporters. It is not
espionage to leak information to the media when the government does, or is
about to do, something wrong; it is whistle-blowing. But charging them with
espionage means the government gets to avoid those pesky whistle-blowing laws
we supposedly have to protect such people.

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mrleinad
SMBC: It cuts both ways[1]

[1]<http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=2434>

