It’s Not As If Anyone Was Using That First Amendment, Anyway
Aug 25th, 2006 at 8:53 am by Susie
So really, why should the press be allowed to use it?
Journalism took another hit yesterday when a federal judge ruled the government could legitimately tap the phones of anyone handling “material that is not generally available to the public.”
As one observer noted, that’s just what a free press traffics. “If the press could only report on ‘information generally available to the public,’ there would be no need for a press,” secrecy expert Steven Aftergood told JTA.
The ruling came in the AIPAC case, which deals with two pro-Israel lobbyists’ receipt of classified intelligence from a Pentagon official. The two lobbyists had challenged the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by investigators to secretly record their conversations. But the judge ruled that “collection or transmission of material that is not generally available to the public†qualifies as an activity that could merit wiretapping under FISA.
huh? I don’t quite understand the ruling. How do you know what you will hear, before you hear it? They can wire tap if the information is not widely known, but not if it is widely known. How do they know what will be revealed before they listen? This makes no sense at all.
The catch is, I think, that they will tap the phones of the leakers I believe, then prosecute them as well as any reporter who reveals the info.
It’s definitely designed to circumvent the 1st Amendment, but if they only target handlers of classified intelligence it may actually be leagal.