Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes [View all]

[onpatrol98]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/20/obama-doj-james-rosen-criminality

Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 May 2013 08.16 EDT

It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined - in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last week's controversy over the DOJ's pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the newsgathering process in general.

New revelations emerged yesterday in the Washington Post that are perhaps the most extreme yet when it comes to the DOJ's attacks on press freedoms. It involves the prosecution of State Department adviser Stephen Kim, a naturalized citizen from South Korea who was indicted in 2009 for allegedly telling Fox News' chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen, that US intelligence believed North Korea would respond to additional UN sanctions with more nuclear tests - something Rosen then reported. Kim did not obtain unauthorized access to classified information, nor steal documents, nor sell secrets, nor pass them to an enemy of the US. Instead, the DOJ alleges that he merely communicated this innocuous information to a journalist - something done every day in Washington - and, for that, this arms expert and long-time government employee faces more than a decade in prison for "espionage".

(snip)

Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ - that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for "soliciting" the disclosure of classified information - is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself. These latest revelations show that this is not just a theory but one put into practice, as the Obama DOJ submitted court documents accusing a journalist of committing crimes by doing this.

That same "solicitation" theory, as the New York Times reported back in 2011, is the one the Obama DOJ has been using to justify its ongoing criminal investigation of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange: that because Assange solicited or encouraged Manning to leak classified information, the US government can "charge [Assange] as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them."

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Okay...I was clearly slow in my understanding. Two points...

1) This is why everyone was so upset about Assange.(Who still strikes me as creepy.) I assumed IT WAS illegal to publish classified information. Apparently it is not. I'm not sure how it would not be...but, okay.

2) If all the Kim guy did was talk with a reporter...not steal classified information, not sell secrets, etc. He simply spoke with an reporter about his understanding of what was going on...that's pretty big, especially if he may get 10 years for it. That is tough.

I don't know anyone in the White House or anywhere else. But, if a discussion that DOES NOT include classified information can get you thrown in jail for 10 years, I would be nervous if I was a blogger with connections. That luncheon with an old friend could be life changing if he talks shop.