Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says • Hacker News Board

Re: Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says

#41

Post by Nrsolis » Fri, May 24, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

glesica wrote: post #37

Nrsolis wrote: post #3

I supported Obama and worked for the campaign in 2008. I'm sad to see that this administration has been more aggressive in leak persecution than GWB. I don't think there is anything wrong in pursuing illegal leaks of classified information. I DO think it's wrong to target bona fide journalists for criminal prosecution based on their reporting. The optics of this kind of thing are bad no matter how you look at it. As…

> wrong to target bona fide journalists for criminal prosecution I'm curious to know how you feel about Wikileaks. Part of the problem, I think, is that much of the media (including Fox) more or less cheered the administration on in its pursuit of Wikileaks. Journalism is an act and has a broad scope. Just as bloggers are journalists (finally recognized in recent years), people who accept documents and disseminate th…

If I'm honest, I feel like Wikileaks started off as a good idea and somehow morphed into something else.

Journalism is an enterprise that commands a great deal of power. With that power comes a great deal of responsibility.

I don't think that Wikileaks used that power responsibly. I also feel like Wikileaks was more akin to a propaganda campaign by a single charismatic man with a little too much anarchist in him.

So while I think it goes too far to call Assange a "conspirator", I don't think he did himself any favors in the process of disseminating his acquired information.

It's important to remember that intent matters. Wikileaks was trying to subvert the ability of governments to operate in secret and thus reduce their power. He wasn't trying to inform the people about things done in their name.

The NYTimes isn't trying to bring down a government. I feel like Wikileaks was.

edit:typo

Re: Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says

#42

Post by hga » Fri, May 24, 2013, 2:52 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #11

jbooth wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I thought this was settled with the Pentagon Papers. But apparently everyone changed their mind after Wikileaks, and without court oversight. Can Fox News sue here? It seems like calling him a co-conspirator (aka journalist) just to get the search warrant with no plans to charge him is super fishy. And even more puzzling than Holder's actions, why isn't Fox News trumpeting this instead of Benghazi?

There was an article on BI a few days ago saying how "Americans don't care" about the AP spying (from a survey), and that they cared a lot more about IRS and Benghazi. But let's put things in context. The IRS scandal, and especially the Benghazi one, have been trumpeted at least 10x more than the AP one. Maybe 100x more. With such "awareness campaign" is it really a surprise most people responded in the surveys with…

I wonder if you oughtn't reconsider how important the IRS+ scandal is (for some targets, it went way past the IRS, even audits by them, e.g for Truth the Vote the FBI, OSHA and BATF all piled on). This systematic suppression by the ruling class* of their opposition implicates the 1st Amendment freedoms of religion†, speech, assembly and petition (e.g. unruly "Town Hall" events).

There's a lot of maxims out there that generally start with "soap box", put ballot box and/or jury box in the middle and end with "bullet box" at the end, and pushing a very large fraction of the polity out of the public square tends to have grave consequences. So far some of them are a massive distrust of one of the essential organs of government (tax collection) and an asterisk that honest historians are going to have to put after mentioning Obama's reelection.

That Team Obama is going after the press just completes the attacks on every single provision of the 1st Amendment (at least if you accept that "secular humanism" or whatever you want to call it is now the established religion, although in all fairness that far predates Obama).

* This is not entirely or perhaps even mostly partisan, for most of the people being suppressed are existential threats to the Republican party establishment, just ask ex-Senator Lugar who's now spending more time with his family. On the other hand, Kimberly Strassle of the WSJ reminds us this started out in 2008 against anyone who opposed Obama, as well as anyone opposing Democrats: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732465940457850...

† Religious organizations were asked impermissible questions that touched on the details of their theology and the like.

Re: Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says

#43

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 24, 2013, 2:52 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #26

rayiner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a warrant, so I'm not sure what lack of court oversight you're talking about.

Bad wording on my part. I guess I was saying that there hasn't been a major court decision overturning US vs Ellsbury/NYT, yet somehow everyone's just pretending it's gone. Seems to me like in order to contradict that previous ruling you should be going to the Supreme Court. I also think it's sketchy as hell to name someone as a 'co-conspirator' in a leak case for being a journalist who was leaked to. That's not cons…

[deleted]

Re: Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says

#44

Post by Nrsolis » Fri, May 24, 2013, 2:52 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #15

mtgx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article on BI a few days ago saying how "Americans don't care" about the AP spying (from a survey), and that they cared a lot more about IRS and Benghazi. But let's put things in context. The IRS scandal, and especially the Benghazi one, have been trumpeted at least 10x more than the AP one. Maybe 100x more. With such "awareness campaign" is it really a surprise most people responded in the surveys with…

Yeah, I hate that circular logic. Americans drink more coke than pepsi, look at the advertising budgets. You hammer something on prime time every night for 6 months and people will think it's a bigger deal than the story you don't. There's not an actual scandal behind Benghazi. Literally none. They're alleging a cover-up, "of what?", "they're covering it up!". That's the whole story and somehow it's 6 months of airti…

I'm not sure if I agree with you about Benghazi.

Brandon Webb and the guys over at SOFREP have been doing a fair bit of reporting on the subject. tl;dr: Benghazi was a colossal screwup and exposed how JSOC operations in the area put State Department people at risk.

Re: Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says

#45

Post by e40 » Fri, May 24, 2013, 2:54 PM UTC

Nrsolis wrote: post #41

glesica wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wrong to target bona fide journalists for criminal prosecution I'm curious to know how you feel about Wikileaks. Part of the problem, I think, is that much of the media (including Fox) more or less cheered the administration on in its pursuit of Wikileaks. Journalism is an act and has a broad scope. Just as bloggers are journalists (finally recognized in recent years), people who accept documents and disseminate th…

If I'm honest, I feel like Wikileaks started off as a good idea and somehow morphed into something else. Journalism is an enterprise that commands a great deal of power. With that power comes a great deal of responsibility. I don't think that Wikileaks used that power responsibly. I also feel like Wikileaks was more akin to a propaganda campaign by a single charismatic man with a little too much anarchist in him. So…

I was on Assange's side until I saw the Frontline piece on Wikileaks. I highly recommend it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/wikileaks/

Re: Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says

#46

Post by cinquemb » Fri, May 24, 2013, 2:58 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #15

mtgx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article on BI a few days ago saying how "Americans don't care" about the AP spying (from a survey), and that they cared a lot more about IRS and Benghazi. But let's put things in context. The IRS scandal, and especially the Benghazi one, have been trumpeted at least 10x more than the AP one. Maybe 100x more. With such "awareness campaign" is it really a surprise most people responded in the surveys with…

Yeah, I hate that circular logic. Americans drink more coke than pepsi, look at the advertising budgets. You hammer something on prime time every night for 6 months and people will think it's a bigger deal than the story you don't. There's not an actual scandal behind Benghazi. Literally none. They're alleging a cover-up, "of what?", "they're covering it up!". That's the whole story and somehow it's 6 months of airti…

Maybe it is because the media has traditionally been at the end of the strings of the State[0], so to be surprised about such actions seems kinda naive. Some people probably stopped taking orders…

But it is interesting/amusing to see the State encroaching upon itself and its own devices in the pursuit of terrorism or whatever thing we're supposed to be fighting these days.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_influence_on_public_opinio...

Re: Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says

#47

Post by Nrsolis » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:01 PM UTC

joshuahedlund wrote: post #20

tptacek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that Obama has been more aggressive than Bush in leak investigations is popular, but I'm not sure it's anything more than circumstantial. Here are the leak prosecutions that have actually happened since he took office: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5701813

The fact remains (as far as I know) that the Obama administration has prosecuted more leaks under the Espionage Act of 1917 than all other presidents up to now combined. So we have a few possibilities: 1) Obama is prosecuting at the same rate of aggressiveness as previous presidents but has happened to have more prosecutable leaks under his watch than all previous presidents combined. 2) Obama is prosecuting at the s…

The case against Tom Drake was beyond the pale for me. Every circumstance surrounding that case was just horrid.

You only need one Watergate to bring down a president.

Re: Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says

#48

Post by jbooth » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:02 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #42

mtgx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article on BI a few days ago saying how "Americans don't care" about the AP spying (from a survey), and that they cared a lot more about IRS and Benghazi. But let's put things in context. The IRS scandal, and especially the Benghazi one, have been trumpeted at least 10x more than the AP one. Maybe 100x more. With such "awareness campaign" is it really a surprise most people responded in the surveys with…

I wonder if you oughtn't reconsider how important the IRS+ scandal is (for some targets, it went way past the IRS, even audits by them, e.g for Truth the Vote the FBI, OSHA and BATF all piled on). This systematic suppression by the ruling class* of their opposition implicates the 1st Amendment freedoms of religion†, speech, assembly and petition (e.g. unruly "Town Hall" events). There's a lot of maxims out there that…

You're not contradicting my contention: Lots of political groups were applying for charitable status, they're not allowed to have it, and it's the IRS's job to flag those groups, filter them out and inform them that their donations are not tax-deductible.

Any political group asking for charity status was not being persecuted -- they were being very properly informed that they're not a charity. If any actual charity was caught up in this dragnet, then that charity was persecuted.

Look at it this way: This IRS dept (overseen by a bush appointee) in a particular year sees a lot of bogus charity 501c4 applications using the word "foobar". They set up a filter on the word foobar to flag any entries containing it for manual review. Completely reasonable, right?

Now change "foobar" to "tea party". That's where they screwed up on CYA, they should've added a bunch of democratic party type keywords to the list and then they're good.

Re: Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says

#49

Post by 3825 » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:07 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #28

3825 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can an Attorney General sign a warrant? Isn't it supposed to be a judge who signs warrants?

DOJ regulations require that the AG approve ('sign off' on) the request for a warrant targeting a journalist, but you are right that only a judge (well at least a magistrate) can actually authorize one.

I fail to see how it is newsworthy that the AG requested a warrant unless there's some kind of a trend that AG approved requests are disproportionately granted.

Re: Holder OK'd search warrant for Fox News reporter's private emails, official says

#50

Post by hga » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:07 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #15

mtgx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article on BI a few days ago saying how "Americans don't care" about the AP spying (from a survey), and that they cared a lot more about IRS and Benghazi. But let's put things in context. The IRS scandal, and especially the Benghazi one, have been trumpeted at least 10x more than the AP one. Maybe 100x more. With such "awareness campaign" is it really a surprise most people responded in the surveys with…

Yeah, I hate that circular logic. Americans drink more coke than pepsi, look at the advertising budgets. You hammer something on prime time every night for 6 months and people will think it's a bigger deal than the story you don't. There's not an actual scandal behind Benghazi. Literally none. They're alleging a cover-up, "of what?", "they're covering it up!". That's the whole story and somehow it's 6 months of airti…

Lying to everyone about Benghazi to maintain a narrative about terrorism prior to the election satisfies most people's definition of a scandal. And for some reason the people on the ground, even in the country, were told to stand down rather than attempt to help, something that no one can remember ever happening before.

Really now, this is the first Ambassador killed in the line of duty in 33 years (previously under Carter, of course) and you're sure there's nothing suspect about it?!??!!!

Your claims about the IRS abuse completely fail, since no "progressive" organizations suffered such abuse. One group even resubmitted their application, just changing the name to include the word Green and sound progressive, and it sailed through the process. And stonewalling != investigation, many groups were delayed for 3+ years, two election cycles, and are still left hanging. Compare to many many other examples, like Obama's Organizing for America -> Organizing for Action 501(c)(4).

You may have no problems with the heavy hand of the government suppressing those you politically oppose, but I assure you the other side does, and as I note elsewhere in this subthread this sort of thing has grave consequences.