Does that mean we can no longer call you on our cell phone and remind you what a party terrorist you are?

I always accept calls to let me know where the party is. I think partying is good for America and lets the terrorists know they will not win!

You’re right – people pay more attention when things hit them personally – but this isn’t just the White House vs. journalists. Messing with your personal privacy is horrendous (and yes, the press has been paying attention, it’s just not very popular to notice that – media bashing being the latest Big Thing) and should be stopped. But this is even worse - any time people start messing in any way with the freedom of the press, they are absolutely and WITHOUT QUESTION fucking with your shit as well. I hope you guys (PD and readers, too) realize that, and remember that this is not just some amusing oh-let’s-see-how-complacent-they-are-now-that-it’s-them type of situation. You may not like the press, but without them we’d be even more fucked.

p.s. I LOVE the image of cannons of ink pointing at the White House.

Let me just clarify that I don't hate the press. Well, maybe Fox News. I just really hate that the whole damn lot of us seem to be so complacent about the unbelievablility of what is going on. I half-expect mass uprisings, but I guess everybody's to worried about what when Angelina Jolie will give birth.

PD – I happen to have it on great authority that you love the press *ass grab* so I wasn’t actually talking about you specifically. It was the more general “you.” Not to be confused with the royal “we.” Having said that, I disagree that the violation of our privacy and the patriot act, etc., has gotten more than simply “a mild stir” in the real publications like WSJ and WaPost, etc. New York Times, with all its foibles, is still an amazing newspaper and gets it right more often than not. Maybe they were a little late or slow on the uptake, but the press always shows up. They made more than a mild stir about Valerie Plame, for example. It’s just so fashionable to bash the press these days (not you, really, but others, including this asshole’s book about how the press is destroying democracy) that few people actually give a damn if it’s true or not.

that should have said that i disagree that it got ONLY a mild stir - i agree that it got more than that.

Poor anonymous informants with security clearances. They swore not to divulge the sensitive information they obtained, and then turned around and gave it to a third party, with the intention that it be shared with the rest of the world.

Soooo...
Giving state secrets to Russian diplomat = spy
Giving state secrets to Pravda reporter = Patriotic Act

Not seeing the abuse of the First Amendment, here.

Who the fuck was talking about Pravda? This is WaPo and NYT, pal.

“Not seeing the abuse of the First Amendment, here”

I assume you’re being sarcastic. Shocking. If I could talk more slowly, I would – but let me try and put it more simply, in deference to you.

Wiretapping and checking phone records of people who have security clearance in an investigation into whether they, in particular, leaked particular classified information is one thing. Can’t say I agree, but OK I can live with it.

Checking the cell phone records of reporters to find out who they’ve talked to in the White House – a blanket check of who ALL of their sources are – is something else entirely. Confidential sources don’t always leak CLASSIFIED information. Sometimes they leak things like, I don’t know, WATERGATE. Which was not all classified – it was just hard to find if you didn’t know where to look. And which was goddamned important to this country, I don’t know if you realize.

An administration that starts scanning all the private cell phone calls made to and from journalists – particularly those critical to the administration (and yes they exist) - is doing nothing more than circumventing laws protecting confidential sources (already being eroded) and that, sweetheart, is the REAL abuse of the First Amendment.

First, we're not talking about a paranoid president's efforts to torpedo a rival political party. We're talking about a criminal investigation into the disclosure of state secrets by a trustee of those secrets.

That trustee might believe in the illegality or the unconstitutionality of the underlying program(s). He might even be right. But NOTHING gave him the right to share that information with an outside party. There are legal alternatives to such disclosure--whether it's to the Wa Po or the government of Canada.

Further, if a reporter obtains classified information, he has every right to _publish_ it. He had NO right to obtain it. The Pentagon Papers case makes that clear--there is no special privilege for reporters to receive information. The privilege begins when the reporter POSESSES the information.

Finally, it's pretty obvious that a reporter who has published classified information SHOULD be a subject of an investigation into leaks, since, you know, he's a necessary and identified element to the crime.

Now, to reiterate, I'm NOT saying that the reporter should be charged with anything. A reporter's actions--so long as he doesn't solicit an illegal act are almost certainly protected. I'm saying that the government KNOWS someone is talking to some specific reporters (because of the by-lines) and the reporter's phone records are an obvious way of linking the two. The TRUSTEE is the objective of the investigation--NOT the reporter.