Using many of the questionable surveillance and monitoring techniques that brought both questions and criticism to his administration, President George W. Bush has launched a war against reporters who write stories unfavorable to his actions and is planning to prosecute journalists to make examples of them in his "war on terrorism."
Bush recently directed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to use "whatever means at your disposal" to wiretap, follow, harass and investigate journalists who have published stories about the administration's illegal use of warrantless wiretaps, use of faulty intelligence and anything else he deems "detrimental to the war on terror."
Reporters for The New York Times, which along with Capitol Hill Blue revealed use of the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and emails of Americans, say FBI agents have interviewed them and criminal prosecutors at the Justice Department admit they are laying "the groundwork for a grand jury that could lead to criminal charges,"
CIA Director Porter Goss told Congress recently that "it is my aim and it is my hope that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information. I believe the safety of this nation and the people of this country deserve nothing less."
Hmm...wonder what took them so long to go public with this decision? I'm certain they've been doing this from the start. No proof, just a gut feeling. Sort of what I'd expect a paranoid regime to do.
Do they REALLY want to know where the leaks are? There's more than one way to comment on the Administration's actions and that's by serving up some juicy insider info to the press.
Posts: 1196 | Location: A danger to this country and the free world | Registered: 03-18-04
While this, if true, would not surprise me in the least, I feel it necessary to point out that Capitol Hill Blue has run stories in the past that never made any mainstream media. Some of the stories were so sensational that, if true, they should have been headlines on all newspapers and the main story on the nightly news.
As I did in the other threads with Capitol Blue as a source, I Googled phrases that should have appeared in stories about this in other media. In this case, I Googled "detrimental to the war on terror" + "the groundwork for a grand jury that could lead to criminal charges" and found nothing except a link to the Capitol Blue story. As in the other threads, this story is dated a few days before the link appeared on AnswerPool. One would think that someone else would have covered this by now.
Posts: 16662 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
William Norman Grigg seems to be a Right Wing character, judging from the articles he has written. Next to the article I linked to by him, there is a "Get the US Out of the UN" button. Here is a list of some of his books. I noticed that at least one of them was published by the John Birch Society. If I remember correctly, those people thought Eisenhower was too Left Wing to be trusted.
Posts: 16662 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
It would seem to me that if you disagree with the government, (any government!), they will come down on you like a ton of bricks. In the U.K., we now can't even protest outside Parliament without prior police permission!
In the search for "Security", all of our liberties are slowly being taken away.
George Dumbya said in a State of the Union speech " Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom." Well, in my book, you do not protect yourself from danger and defend freedom by cutting down on the liberty of the citizen.
With the Patriot Act etc. and the legislation introduced in the U.K., both countries are slowly descending into police states.
The Left thinks Bush has gone too far in taking away individual rights. Some of the Right thinks Bush has gone too far in taking away individual rights. Where does that indicate Bush lies in the political spectrum? It certainly isn't between the Left and Right.
Not enough people realize that ideas can't be defeated by action, be it military action or suppressive action like this incident. Evidence of that is the idea of states' rights in the US. The Civil War was fought over that, the South crushed, and yet states rights' issues are still being fought in Congress a century and a half later.
Posts: 16662 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
