CIA Leak Storm Set to Break ¶ 1st Amendment Not a Defense to Espionage – Updated

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Rife with rumors, Washington is braced for a political earthquake over an intricate CIA leak scandal, with a special prosecutor apparently narrowing in on key aides to President George W. Bush and the office of VP Dick Cheney.

  «« click on pic to link to DoJ website
U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald,
pictured August 2005.  
AFP/Getty Images/File/Tim Boyle

LAATSTE NEWS plus BLOGS ::
1. Legal Problems Dog Bush’s Inner Circle – How To Fill the Void
2. Special Counsel Fitzgerald in CIA leak Case Seen as Incorruptible
3. The Huffington Post

Tony Blankley wrote an interesting article suggesting that Seymour Hersh was guilty of violating the Espionage Act when he revealed details regarding US intelligence pertaining to Iraq. This column is from January 19, 2005:

In the fairly recent past, at least one journalist writing for Jane’s Publications has been successfully prosecuted under the statute, freedom of speech and the press not being a defense to espionage. Remember, in the famous Pentagon Papers case, the issue was prior restraint. Could the government stop a newspaper from publishing government secrets relating not to current operations but to prior planning? The answer then was no. But in the current matter of Seymour Hersh and the New Yorker, they have been free to publish the article. The question is whether or not any legal consequences attach to that decision.

I was shocked when I read Mr. Hersh’s article in The New Yorker. Note the tenses he uses to describe American military action: “The American commando task force … is now working,” “has been conducting secret reconnaissance.” In other words, Mr. Hersh is revealing to all the world, including the Iranian government, that our commandos are currently behind enemy lines in Iran on a dangerous and vital military assignment.”  

Full article here »»

Wow. What the hell? How did this go unpunished? Aren’t we at war? Are we really so docile, America? Are we really going to allow them to do this to us?

When is the main stream media going to pay attention to the “eight redacted pages”, the Judges’ comments about the damage to national security, and the actual laws that have been broken, especially 18 USC 794?

If you just look at the facts that are not even in dispute, they prove that Plame and Brewster Jennings were outed, you have prima facie convictions just sitting their staring America in the face.

[Minor edits, links and bold face emphasis added – Oui]