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

#61

Post by 3am » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:29 PM UTC

1337biz wrote: post #38

throwaway9848 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read the article, but I've heard nothing about him targeting _the journalist_ for prosecution. They are trying to target the leaker for disseminating classified information, and got a warrant to search the email account of the person he leaked to. By far the best part of this whole affair has been the journalistic pearl-clutching, as if they would be immune the the same laws permitting such invasions of priv…

Since you seem to be new around here: Please don't start a post with I didn't read the article . Some people on this site put a decent amount of work into their comments. So please spend at least the 5 minutes skimming through the article before making a statement.

"Rosen, who has not been charged in the case, was nonetheless the target of a search warrant"

From the article. So in spite of not reading the article, their comment was correct.

You do know that it is believed that someone died as a result of this leak?

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

#62

Post by hga » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:30 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #57

hga wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And this is why they say to keep politics off of HN. None of your assertions are backed up by fact. It's really disheartening to see this nonsense here.

In other words, you have no basis to deny my words, so you want them banned on this forum.

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

#63

Post by jbooth » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:33 PM UTC

Nrsolis wrote: post #44

jbooth wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Obviously, if people died, then someone screwed up bad.

But the "scandal" hasn't been about who screwed up. It's been about whether Obama used the word terrorism enough times in the aftermath, and nebulous accusations of "cover-up" with no actual allegations of wrongdoing that's being covered up. It's pathetic.

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

#64

Post by hga » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:36 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #60

hga wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are very confused. 501(c) status is about being a non-profit, not necessarily a "charity". Only a few of the current 27 categories of 501(c) organizations can reasonably be called charities, look at the list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)_organization#Types , e.g. see 501(c)(16) for farmer's coops. 501(c)(4) organizations are mostly not charities, e.g. the NRA's lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative A…

OFA only switched to a tax-exempt organization in January 2013. I don't know the full story behind that, but I feel that their activity before 2013 was primarily political and shouldn't be tax-exempt (and it wasn't).

And their first big campaign as a 501(c)(4) was gun control, and that's not political?

Note, I'm not saying that's wrong, in fact, it mirrors the NRA's ILA on the opposite side of that fight.

Look, we had an established system for doing this sort of thing, and it makes no sense whatsoever to make political organizations organize as for profit entities, monetary return on investment is not their game. And donations for political purposes to 501(c)(4) orgs are not tax deductible for the donors.

What we'd like is a return to the level playing field pre-Obama, but I don't know of anyone who believes that will happen, e.g. the IG finished the audit of the program in the middle of last year, obviously didn't release the results, but most damningly didn't stop the abuse, which continues to this day.

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

#65

Post by jbooth » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:46 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #64

jbooth wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OFA only switched to a tax-exempt organization in January 2013. I don't know the full story behind that, but I feel that their activity before 2013 was primarily political and shouldn't be tax-exempt (and it wasn't).

And their first big campaign as a 501(c)(4) was gun control, and that's not political? Note, I'm not saying that's wrong, in fact, it mirrors the NRA's ILA on the opposite side of that fight. Look, we had an established system for doing this sort of thing, and it makes no sense whatsoever to make political organizations organize as for profit entities, monetary return on investment is not their game. And donations fo…

That's actually a legitimate argument. In theory, there could be a tea party group that was doing issue advocacy and not campaigning for candidates. In practice, many of them were in fact advocating for candidates, and the IRS screwed up by not scrutinizing all issue groups equally.

You've actually changed my mind a little on this. I don't believe that this was some nefarious obama socialist plot (under a Bush appointed supervisor) as you seem to but I now think that the IRS actually screwed up as opposed to failed to cover their ass. So good job.

Honest question: If extra review of obviously-political groups calling themselves social welfare organizations were perfectly balanced across the political spectrum, would you support it?

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

#66

Post by hga » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:48 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #63

Nrsolis wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Obviously, if people died, then someone screwed up bad. But the "scandal" hasn't been about who screwed up. It's been about whether Obama used the word terrorism enough times in the aftermath, and nebulous accusations of "cover-up" with no actual allegations of wrongdoing that's being covered up. It's pathetic.

That part of the scandal is about Team Obama blaming this on the Emmanuel Goldstein du jore, who's still in jail. Otherwise you have to accept the Administration's narrative that Arab mobs routinely bring RPGs and mortars to their protests of insults to their religion.

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

#67

Post by hga » Fri, May 24, 2013, 3:59 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #65

hga wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And their first big campaign as a 501(c)(4) was gun control, and that's not political? Note, I'm not saying that's wrong, in fact, it mirrors the NRA's ILA on the opposite side of that fight. Look, we had an established system for doing this sort of thing, and it makes no sense whatsoever to make political organizations organize as for profit entities, monetary return on investment is not their game. And donations fo…

That's actually a legitimate argument. In theory, there could be a tea party group that was doing issue advocacy and not campaigning for candidates. In practice, many of them were in fact advocating for candidates, and the IRS screwed up by not scrutinizing all issue groups equally. You've actually changed my mind a little on this. I don't believe that this was some nefarious obama socialist plot (under a Bush appoin…

Not sure, I find it impossible to believe that the establishment will give anti-establishment political organizations a fair shake, which is exactly what happened in this scandal. These orgs are not partisan per se, for all I know there's some anti-establishment Democrats out there that they've supported (e.g. many of my home state's Missouri Democratic "liberals" are to the right of the national Republican party/establishment), and they've collected many Republican establishment scalps.

But one of the problems is that before the fact investigation just doesn't work, for how can you tell if an org is going to do impermissible actions? The only one that counts is coordination with a campaign, which is by definition secret, because the other impermissible actions (at least that I know of) are by definition public.

Although, now that I think about it, I'm not sure where the lines are drawn. The NRA-ILA explicitly "endorses" some politicians in addition to grading all they can afford to do, and boy do anti-gun Republicans squeal like stuck pigs when the NRA tells the truth, or, worse, goes after them with a rusty knife like they did with F rated Lugar. So explicit endorsement per se does not cross the line....

Look at the examples of the suppressed orgs that said their purpose was teaching people about the Constitution. That's obviously subversive nowadays (heck, look at the IRS ex-Commissioner I think who said he didn't know the contents of the 1st Amendment), and yet they somehow deserve extra scrutiny?

Look up the concept of prior restraint, which the government is seldom allowed to do when it comes to enumerated Constitutional rights. I.e. they can't order the press to not do something, only prosecute them afterwords.

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

#68

Post by hga » Fri, May 24, 2013, 4:17 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #56

philwelch wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention selling guns to Mexican cartels.

I thought informed people knew by now that the public narrative regarding fast and furious was completely fabricated? I can't recall the article off the top of my head, but it has long been shown that this operation was in fact not the policy of the DOJ, but that bureaucratic nonsense and politics at the state level actually prevented the agents on the field from intercepting the guns.

Informed people know the BATF never made any attempt to track the guns whatsoever (unlike the previous Boooosh "Wide Receiver" where they put tracking and transmitting devices in the stocks of the guns, but abandoned the effort after about 200 guns since the approach wasn't working).

There's some telling emails that have surfaced that indicate the sole purpose was to generate more statistics about guns of American origin fueling the drug war, there's also indications this was supplying one faction, the Sinaloa Cartel, since their opponents, Los Zetas, are by far the most dangerous and a potential existential threat to the Mexican government). And all during this period Team Obama were telling lies about the fraction of guns that fuel the drug war down south that come from civilian US sources, trying to make a case for more gun control in the US, and illegally doing so by ordering gun shops to report multiple rifle sales.

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

#69

Post by glesica » Fri, May 24, 2013, 4:19 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…

So then what is Fox? They seem to be trying pretty hard to reduce the power of certain elements within the government. Whatever your political stripe, I think we can agree that Fox, MSNBC and similar do a great deal more than simply "inform the public". So does Fox even have a right to complain by your standards?

The problem with involving things like "intent" is that it makes the line between "journalism" and "not journalism" murky and impossible to define clearly. This means that true protection for journalists is impossible since they will always have an uncertain status.

What was widely considered to be journalism on September 10, 2001 was considered by many to be borderline treason on September 12, 2001 (remember when GWB had a 90% approval rating?). The intent might not have changed ("inform the public") but the public perception of the intent changed radically.

Further, if the effect of the dissemination is taken into account in the definition of "journalism", then it is impossible to know a priori whether disseminating a given piece of information will be considered journalism or not. How can the NYT be sure that they won't accidentally spark a revolution? Further, isn't there a fairly extensive history of newspapers directly calling for various forms of revolution?

So the only way to really protect journalists is to define journalism broadly and objectively. Disseminating information, regardless of motive, must be considered journalism then. This means that Wikileaks must qualify for protection just as the NYT does.

Note: I'm not saying the government can't go after people who break their various responsibilities related to keeping secrets. I'm also not saying that simply making crap up and publishing it should be protected, but the laws related to these things are well-established and relatively uncontroversial.

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

#70

Post by hga » Fri, May 24, 2013, 4:20 PM UTC

Nrsolis wrote: post #47

joshuahedlund wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"You only need one Watergate to bring down a Republican president."

Fixed it for you.