Ridiculous Timing: Obama Administration Responds To Spying On AP By Pushing Journalist Shield Law That Wouldn't Matter
from the oh-come-off-it dept
There was one odd side note in all of the attention last week to the DOJ spying on the AP under questionable circumstances. Right after being confronted about it, the Obama administration released some talking points about how they support a reintroduction of a reporter's shield law. There have been various attempts to pass a special shield law for journalists for a few years now, though in the past it's been blocked each time. Also, we've been fairly skeptical about the whole process, because different politicians always seek to carve out key parties, whether it's bloggers or Wikileaks. Frankly, it's always seemed to us that a shield law should protect acts of journalism. That is, it should apply to specific situations, rather than specific people.In the past, the Obama administration has claimed to support such a shield law, but with serious limitations, such as not having that law apply when the administration decides (by itself) that it's a matter that involves "significant" harm to national security. Given that Eric Holder has already argued that this case involved such a situation (even if the evidence suggests otherwise), it seems likely that any such shield law for journalists wouldn't have mattered in the AP case. There may have been some procedural differences, but the end result would have likely been pretty much the same.
But, really, using this story as a nail to hang their support for a shield law seems pretty ridiculous. "Oh, yeah, you caught us spying on reporters -- here's a bill that we want that wouldn't have stopped that, but if you're really concerned about a pretend level of privacy for journalists and their sources, it's something, sorta."
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: eric holder, journalism, president obama, reporters, shield law, surveillance
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Window dressing to conceal shift from payoffs to coercion.
There's so obviously an agenda behind the recent spate of "revelations" that even National Review has caught on:
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/348942/all-obamas-scandals-are-ultimately-about-i nformation-control-jim-geraghty
"There’s really no reason for the press to suggest that the recent slew of scandals involving the Obama administration — Benghazi, the AP phone-record seizure, the snooping in James Rosen’s e-mail, the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, and so on — are a confusing jumble. There is a very clear thread running through all of the administration’s actions:"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Window dressing to conceal shift from payoffs to coercion.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Window dressing to conceal shift from payoffs to coercion.
All rich people are criminals
All corporations are corrupt
All torrent users are pirates
All Techdirt readers and writers are freetards
I would expect nothing less than him believing all journalists are evil and soulless.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Window dressing to conceal shift from payoffs to coercion.
Blue actually believes that generalizing gives us the right answer. Nuance is non-existent. You can't try things on a case by case basis. Rich people are bad because being rich makes them bad. Anyone who says "some rich people are bad" is an idiot for even considering the possibility of the existence of a non-bad rich person.
It's the same for everything. He probably doesn't like food, or likes all food. Because "some food is bad" wouldn't be generalizing, and blue won't accept anything except blanket statements and generalizing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Window dressing to conceal shift from payoffs to coercion.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Window dressing to conceal shift from payoffs to coercion.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This is left field off at first: As for your skepticism about the Obama Administration's sincerity, I don't blame you one bit because this same administration knew about the IRS scandal as early as this year's tax day.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Leakers and the government
Both of these cases caused it to become known that we had human intelligence sources inside regimes/organizations that are REALLY REALLY hard to get inside sources to penetrate. North Korea and Al Queda are paranoid, insular, and really nasty. Getting a double agent into either of them is something I would consider important.
So, while it is the nature of governments to cover their asses by over-classifying anything that would embarrass them, sometimes there really is a really good reason NOT to leak something.
How do we draw the line?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Leakers and the government
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Leakers and the government
Since non of the parties are puritan in this field, it would of course still result in bypartisan screwups or opposition caused screwups being hidden, but it is less likely to be the case thab a current administrations faux pas.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Leakers and the government
But the US of A has never really been into bringing those that cause an unjust war to bare for their actions. Hell, Bush and his entire crew were given a pass on that one, when it was pretty obvious that, with the help of bad intelligence, they manufactured the war in Iraq.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The whole point of the above, as well as the use of the spy laws to prosecute whistle blowers, and the level of secrecy involved with FOI requests shows this administration is hell bent on hiding what ever they are doing. Even to the point of making legal theory of what they think the laws says, not what it reads to say, and then claiming that theory to be a national secret that can't be told.
When was the last time you were expected to obey laws you don't know about and can't be told about?
Something seriously stinks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
something President Obama does very , very well
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Republicans too.
Tories in the UK, and Labour, and Lib Dems, and UKIP.
It is something that career politicians are very adept at.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
And FYI, there is no real left, right, or middle, it's politicians all the way down.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The U.S. Constitution has been under attack a lot more since Obama took office. I hate to say but when the Departmenty of Justice has been the single department that has been singling out everyone in this country, then there's a serious breakdown. And I seem to recall someone stating that Obama is very familiar with constitutional law.
The man is a moron. I'm just waiting because things are reaching a boiling point where Americans aren't going to take these attacks lying down any longer. Our country is simply under attack by Democrats and Republicans.
The constitution should never be interpreted by politicians. That's something that should be left up to the courts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
So was the only real competition. Romney is a Bush level moron.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Just repeating that 'the other choice' would've been worse is on the level of "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
How Wikileaks was treated was cheered by these same journalists... and now they are shocked when its done to them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"When was the last time you were expected to obey laws you don't know about and can't be told about?".
Well, how about that infamous quote when Miz Pelosi told us that "we have to pass the law in order to find out what's IN the law".
The more that we find out about the so-called Affordable Health Act, the more it becomes evident that we can't afford it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Please don't throw such comments around as insults, it is outdated and even possibly damaging to developing youths that may make the wrong connections early in life and end up with cancer of the testis thinking that regular masturbation is bad.
~~~~~ The more you know!~~~~~
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There may have been some procedural differences, but the end result would have been EXACTLY the same.
FTFY
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
???
Some one needs a working sex toy I guess.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]