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Trump's targeting of a New York Times journalist, explained by experts
The Trump administration took its war with the media to the next level this week when federal authorities seized years of phone records from New York Times reporter Ali Watkins as part of a federal investigation into leaks of classified information.
Watkins, who previously worked for BuzzFeed News and Politico, had a three-year relationship with James Wolfe, a former Senate Intelligence Committee aide who was arrested on Thursday and charged with lying to federal agents investigating the classified leaks.
The seizure set off alarm bells about the relationship between the administration and the media. The Department of Justice under Obama took phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors, named a Fox News reporter an unindicted "co-conspirator" in a leak case, and prosecuted multiple cases involving whistleblowers and leakers. So is what Trump doing more of the same? Or is a president who routinely bashes the media and threatens to jail leakers finally turning his rhetoric into reality?
"It's deeply alarming that the Trump administration has decided to build off of the worst of the Obama legacy on leak investigations and reporter-source protection," said Alexandra Ellerbeck, the North America program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Also at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Emptywheel, and Fox News.
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 5, Insightful) by choose another one on Friday June 15 2018, @06:50PM (42 children)
So Obama did this in 2013, and it's now 2018 and journalists still haven't figured out dead drops, anonymous emails or burner phones?
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 15 2018, @06:56PM (40 children)
Well that's the problem. At some point the reporter needs to be able to access the information. The DOJ then (secretly) pulls everything off the reporter's device.
The most chilling part being that the reporter isn't even the one charged with a crime!
And to make it worse, they're indiscriminately pulling everything for a year. So all sorts of unrelated confidential information is going with it.
And yes, this was wrong when Obama did it too. If you need to get evidence from a witness in a case the legal way to do so is to issue a subpoena.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday June 15 2018, @07:26PM (34 children)
> The most chilling part being that the reporter isn't even the one charged with a crime!
That's the point.
The reporter is protected by the first amendment. The leakers have to be discouraged from ever thinking about leaking.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday June 15 2018, @09:25PM (33 children)
Interesting. Here is the 1st Amendment:
Show me this special right to violate laws if one is a member of the press? Show me where that even defines who is a member of of this protected group? Show me anywhere in the Constitution that permits "protected groups" in the first place?
A law is for everyone or it is merely the powerful decreeing orders to the ruled. The NYT has no special rights thee and me do not also possess. If I can't fuck an important official and get classified info to post to soylentnews then she can't fuck someone for the NYT. Presstitutes are not a protected class.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 15 2018, @09:30PM (20 children)
Show me this special right to violate laws if one is a member of the press?
Show me where the DOJ is accusing the press of breaking the law. (hint: they're not)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday June 15 2018, @09:37PM (19 children)
Bitch was trading sex for classified intel. She knew the information was classified, her superiors at the NYT knew it was classified and how she was obtaining it. If all of that isn't criminal you have redefined the word into meaninglessness. You can start with simple prostitution charges (exchanging sex for a thing of value is the textbook definition) for her and pimping for her boss then explore the national security implications and add to the list of charges. It would be fall on the floor funny to have the NYT shut down as an illegal escort service.
(Score: 3, Touché) by NewNic on Friday June 15 2018, @10:00PM (18 children)
OK, that's an interesting perspective. Isn't paying for sex usually illegal also? Now, what did Trump and Cohen do with Stormy Daniels and others?
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday June 15 2018, @10:03PM (14 children)
Never quite understood that either. Porn stars are apparently exempt from prostitution charges by unspoken agreement or something. Otherwise the entire industry would have been subject to the mother of all RICO seizures decades ago.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Friday June 15 2018, @10:08PM (11 children)
Porn makers are artists, and their porn speech is protected.
Any other obvious first amendment ruling you're not up to date on ?
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday June 15 2018, @10:44PM (4 children)
It may be best, where jmorris is concerned, to just assume all of them. He's been totally alt-right vectored, he can only see free speech as a weapon, as he also sees the law itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @06:54AM (3 children)
So, the right to keep and bear free speech shall not be abridged ?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday June 16 2018, @08:21AM (2 children)
Now, you see, this is exactly the problem. If we cannot actually understand what is being said, is it speech at all? When speech is construed as a weapon, then it really is not speech, it is a projectile, a semantic bomb, a tangle of incoherence designed to confuse and discombobulate the enemy. Which means, since no actual communication has taken place, that it is not, in the strictest sense, speech. So we can just shut up jmorris, since reducing noise is not restricting free speech. Of course, we all hope and pray that some day he recovers. But no evidence yet.
So the right to talk to bears, to bare arms, the right to arm bears to speak, all these are still on the table. jmorris, however, is under the table, engaged in nefarious activities.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday June 16 2018, @10:17AM (1 child)
Tell this to... ummm... let me see, who should I pick... Ok, suprematists [wikipedia.org] (not supremacists).
Or abstract expressionists (Pollock and the gang).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:03AM
Oh, my dear c0lo, you should have picked it up out of the ether! Hawking radiation, the only possible communication out of a black hole. He was interred today, and a message sent. Almost the same as abstract expressionism. Or cubism. Or Piss-christ. Deschamps urinal was destined to end up there, no?
And, not surprising that white supremacists should be coming out of, or more likely into, a black hole. An infinite sink of the negation of light and knowledge! But we were having a nice discussion of the ins and outs of treason as defined by the war crimes committed by Americans, because they were just following orders, or were jmorris. Poor jmorris, so sad to be so stupid.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday June 16 2018, @12:15AM (5 children)
So if I offer some chick $200 to do the wild thang and she says yes that is criminal for both of us. If offer her and some other dude $200 each to screw while I watch that is also criminal. If I make the same offer and film it to spank off to later, also criminal for all three of us. But if I say I am filming a porno everybody is ok? And I guess if I am lying and just want it to spank off to they are ok and I'm going to jail? Or what if I decide the performance just isn't up to commercial standards and it remains unreleased but I have released other pornos so am "officially" a porno producer? If I demand some "rehearsals" before the camera rolls is that OK? Is it only ok if I have released 'real' porno before and/or they are 'real' porn stars? Is there a union card requirement? Hiring professional stage hands? Being incorporated? What is the rule here? Is this really your final answer because I'm seeing some logical inconsistencies in it.
Basically we are back to my original assertion that we just kinda ignore the prostitution laws when it comes to porno because.... we like porno? there is too much money in it to criminalize? help a guy out here. It does not make sense and trying to hand wave it away on some bullshit 1st Amendment basis is a non-answer at best. An illegal act doesn't become legal just because someone films it with commercial and/or artistic intent. And again, lets be honest, the percentage of porno filmed with "artistic" intent is close enough to zero to safely round down to zero.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday June 16 2018, @12:28AM
I didn't say your stupid setup made sense.
The root of the incoherence is that prostitution is illegal, because reasons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @12:30AM (3 children)
The idea that the first amendment protects pornography is not baseless. It protects movies and videos in general, so of course it would also protect pornography.
The issue here is not that the first amendment protects pornography, but that our courts are inconsistent. If you pay someone to have sex with you, that's none of the government's business and under no circumstances should it be involved.
Speech does not need to be artistic.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:08AM (2 children)
So if I'm making a reality TV show I can rob a bank?
Think you miss the key difference. If I make a movie about robbing a bank, no actual bank is robbed in the process. It is just a movie, either done on a back lot somewhere or filmed at an actual bank with safeguards so everybody knows it is a movie shoot and nobody gets shot at for real, the real money is safely elsewhere and replaced with fake Hollywood play money. If I film myself actually robbing a bank a crime is being committed. And when was just "Showtime porn" it was the same thing, sorta dirty movie with some nudity and simulated sex it was the same rule. Just Hollywood movie magic fake sex so no prostitution worry.
Then hard core porn suddenly became a massive and pervasive thing and everybody kinda hand waved away the legal implications because there was so much money in it yet everybody kinda knew an outright legislative attempt to legalize it would fail.
When you make the argument that prostitution should be legal you have a logical basis to argue from, if sex for money is legal then saying that filming it is legal is an easy to argue position. No way that is passing a legislature in 90% of the country, but logically consistent. Your 1st Amendment argument is just bullcrap though.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:20AM
When you rob a bank, someone is harmed. When you have consensual sex with someone, whether they take money for it or not, no one is harmed.
As I said, the issue is that our courts are inconsistent. Both pornography and prostitution should be protected by the Constitution. That's how you really rectify the situation, not by prohibiting them both.
Nope. It's a form of expression, so it absolutely falls under the first amendment.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Saturday June 16 2018, @09:05PM
If you have an agreement with the bank to rob it and no one is hurt, yes, of course. Why would you doubt this?
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday June 15 2018, @10:11PM (1 child)
Seems paying others to have sex in front of someone else is okay, provided none of the participants is paying any of the others.. Makes it hard to be a performer and a producer!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by Aegis on Saturday June 16 2018, @12:10AM
It's just a weird edge case with how the law is written.
Considering our high population of programmers I don't understand why that's such an outrageous concept.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:47PM (2 children)
Trump didn't pay for sex. That was free. He paid for her to shut her mouth years after it was over. She took the money and ran her mouth anyway.
As Guilianni said her primary business (which is fucking for money) “entitles you to no degree of giving your credibility any weight.” Violating a contract for which she accepted payment tends to corroborate that conclusion.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Saturday June 16 2018, @09:12PM (1 child)
Is it, really? What law requires those actions?
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:17PM
Cyber has many problems, nobody really knows what's going on. And your tweet came out as an answer to the wrong tweet. Not the tweet you were trying to answer.
But jmorris said it very well, it's not a law. He said it's called LOYALTY to your Country. That's very special. And loyalty to your President is even more special!!!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday June 15 2018, @10:06PM (11 children)
Can you read what you write ?
> abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
It's the act of publishing which defines the press, not calling yourself a journalist and feeling entitled to superior protections. Additionally, the government doesn't get to choose who's a journalist.
The person leaking classified stuff is breaking the law. The act of publishing it is protected. Beating up the publisher or rummaging through his stuff, have a chilling effect (legal term) on the freedom of the press, and that's when you can trust this SCOTUS to smack things down.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday June 15 2018, @10:50PM
We can? I certainly have doubts about trusting the SCOTUS, although not as many I suppose as the rest of the government. I guess we have to settle for putting our trust in the lesser of evils?
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Saturday June 16 2018, @12:44AM (9 children)
That is insane. If I fall into possession of information I know is classified it is my duty as a Citizen to return it to the government AND report how I came to be in possession of it. Being employed by the NYT does not change that responsibility to obey laws. Being a sworn agent of the State is not a requirement to be expected to exhibit basic loyalty to one's Country. There was not even the fig leaf of whistleblower status involved in the case under discussion. But even then, one should first try the official avenues of reporting wrongdoing. Inspectors General, Congressional Oversight (what the asshole who leaked to this whore was responsible for security for btw), even trying to get a meeting with the Dept Head to try reporting wrongdoing in a government agency. Blasting classified information into the NYT purely to wage partisan war should be punishable for both the leaker and the NYT.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:25AM (7 children)
Depends on the information. If it describes the preparation of the Holocaust ? Black torture sites of political opponents ? Torture sites of terrorists ? Modern slavery cover-up ? Presidential political scandal coverup ?
Are you, jmorris, loyal to this country's R government in the same way that you were to the previous D government? Which illegally stored government emails are worse ?
Who do you trust with information that you really believe to be embarrassing to those in power, when they are all from the same party? We're not talking about returning the technical drawings for the latest stealth bomber, but exposing potentially dangerous activities of the people in power.
Why do you think someone bothered to quill down those words ? 4th branch...
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:23AM (6 children)
I think I already explained that. You first disclose to the official channels setup for exposing government wrongdoing. Like I dunno, perhaps the GODDAMNED UNITED STATES SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE. You fuckers keep eliding that little detal in all this sanctimonious bullcrap. This guy was working security for the United States Senate Intelligence Committee investigating all of this purported "wrongdoing" when he leaked selected details to the NYT whore.
Show me the quilled down words about a "4th branch.." It is right there with the Right to an Abortion, in your (and the Proggie members of SCOTUS') imagination. So you fail Constitution 101. No prize will be awarded. Good Day Sir.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 16 2018, @04:51AM (4 children)
The New York Times and other media outlets are official channels set up by the First Amendment for this purpose as well.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday June 16 2018, @05:36AM (3 children)
Citation needed. Show me where Pinch and his foreign investors are the official designated arbitrator for whether classified information should be splashed on the front page of the NYT to juice their ad revenues and serve their un-American political activity?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:52AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @12:43AM
Khallow i vant believe this but jmorris makes you look downright reasonable. Is this some shell game from you foreign cyberspooks?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday June 18 2018, @04:33PM
Them goal posts got a new turbo. The ownership of the paper does not matter, unless they break other laws.
Did you know that the owner of Fox was Australian?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday June 16 2018, @07:05AM
Isn't that dangerously close to telling an infamous brutal dictator that one of his men may not be fully committed to freedom and justice for all?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @12:51AM
Found the boot licking fascist!
Oh wait, nm everybody just jmorris, nothing new here.
(Score: 0, Informative) by frojack on Friday June 15 2018, @07:28PM (4 children)
At the time, the only people worried that Obama did this was Fox News, and of course all the "progressives" (probably including you) decided this was perfectly ok because, Hey it was only Fox News, and so they poo pooed the whole issue.
You can be sure Obama wasn't the first, Nixon, Clinton, and Ford administrations [pbs.org] did the same:
It sounds like another "First they came for..." moral teaching.
Were it not for the fact that the press has been totally weaponized by the left, most Americans would be incensed.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 15 2018, @08:18PM (1 child)
and of course all the "progressives" (probably including you) decided this was perfectly ok
I literally just said it wasn't.
the only people worried that Obama did this was Fox News,
That is a blatant lie. Every journalistic organization in the US protested that move.
Associated Press/CNN [cnn.com]
USA Today [usatoday.com]
New York Times [nytimes.com]
Washington Post [washingtonpost.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 15 2018, @08:46PM
Ssssshhhh, don't upset Frojackoff with logic and reality and facts when he's on a tear. He needs his daily dose of Narrativium. It's either that or he bottles it all up and the next thing you know he's sniping people from a clock tower with his dick in his off hand and his pants on his head...
...which, to be fair, differs from the usual case only in that he'll be armed and outdoors...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday June 15 2018, @09:23PM
This is one of those things that the party in opposition bitches about when it is being done but only bitches enough for their voters to ee their concern. They know well that actually doing something about the problem would keep the opposition party from doing it when they have power. Fortunately both parties hate Trump so hopefully they can pass some "bipartisan" measure to block him. Although i am sure they will have a wink wink nod nod understanding that the rule only applies to Trump.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday June 16 2018, @07:18AM
FTFY
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:43AM
Well, to be fair, everything changes when the reporter is playing belly-bump with his/her source. Whatever perspective the reporter may have had is just blown away in deference to hormones and pheromones.