Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Following Up On Jake Tapper's Line Of Questioning...

...is the New York Times, of all publications, and they seem to give credence to his charge, made last week,  that left both Jay Carney (and other observers) open mouthed:

How does that square with the fact that this administration has been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive journalism in the United States by using the Espionage Act to take whistleblowers to court?”

Jay sputtered and other pool reporters rolled their eyes, but the Times seems to agree with Jake:

The Obama administration, which promised during its transition to power that it would enhance “whistle-blower laws to protect federal workers,” has been more prone than any administration in history in trying to silence and prosecute federal workers.

The Espionage Act, enacted back in 1917 to punish those who gave aid to our enemies, was used three times in all the prior administrations to bring cases against government officials accused of providing classified information to the media. It has been used six times since the current president took office
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Abusing power much, Mr. President? This example cited by the Times is something you'd expect to see in Soviet Russia:

In one of the more remarkable examples of the administration’s aggressive approach, Thomas A. Drake, a former employee of the National Security Agency, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act last year and faced a possible 35 years in prison.

His crime? When his agency was about to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a software program bought from the private sector intended to monitor digital data, he spoke with a reporter at The Baltimore Sun. He suggested an internally developed program that cost significantly less would be more effective and not violate privacy in the way the product from the vendor would. (He turned out to be right, by the way.
)

He was charged with 10 felony counts that accused him of lying to investigators and obstructing justice. Last summer, the case against him collapsed, and he pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor, of misuse of a government computer
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Will this new-found media attention stop the Obama Administration's rapacious appetite for the destruction of our civil and free society? Or will the New York Times' David Carr find himself drinking a uranium-237 cocktail?

One wonders what this Administration is really up to, and what it believes it can get away with, if it is confident no one on the inside will squeal under penalty of virtual life imprisonment...(like, say, maybe..."Fast & Furious"?)

As I have said before...there is nothing you can rule out, no volition, no act of domestic terror, no nefarious motivation, when you are dealing with Barack Obama and his cadre of socialists...

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