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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.
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(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