Lieberman Suggests Investigating New York Times for Publishing WikiLeaks Data
- Posted on December 7, 2010 at 7:33pm by
Meredith Jessup
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Since Wikileaks released thousands of classified documents, pundits have speculated whether or not the organization’s founder and spokesman, Julian Assange, could be charged with crimes as high as treason. In an interview on Fox News Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., weighed in on the debate.
“What do you think of the Justice Department’s action, so far, not to charge Julian Assange with treason?” Lieberman was asked.
This is a “serious legal question,” Lieberman responded, one that “has to be answered” — possibly with a criminal investigation of Wikileaks, Assange and the various media outlets who helped spread the classified information.
Then what about the news organizations, including the Times, that have accepted it and distributed it? … To me, New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship. And whether they’ve committed a crime, I think that bears very intensive inquiry by the Justice Department.
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Comments (70)
Chet Hempstead
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 12:47amI’m glad that the people on this site are such staunch defenders of a free press all of a sudden. Two days ago, when conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer was spouting the same stupid garbage that moderate Democrat Joe Lieberman is saying today, there were a lot of people who managed to convince themselves that they agreed with him.
Report Post »JG1000
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 11:55pmWikiLeaks Mystery Woman Exposed.
Report Post »There is a site that has revealed the identity and juicy mystery past of the woman responsible for the arrest of WikiLeaks owner Julian Assange. Just published tonight at http://www.robbingamerica.com
Including her Photo.
dontbotherme
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 11:19pmI used to like Lieberman. Sometimes I still do. This “newspaper” seems to choose expose’s that are a detriment to our country. I wonder if they are a pawn of the Obama administration (or the leftist communists). I would really like an investigation into the FCC, whose commissioners seem to believe that they have more power than the House, the Senate & the Supreme Court.
Report Post »crossdraw
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 7:23amThe Fcc has been minimalized with Clyborn in power. Isn’t she the daughter of Sen. James Clyborn? A real fine politician, that one is. I may not be spelling their last name correctly but a stinky slug leaves a stinky trail. It seems that Hillary ****’on was feeling the heat of some terrible embarrassment and that tipped the scale. Her hair-do is her real and terrible embarrassment though. Gives lesbians a bad name.
Report Post »ChrisBalsz
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 10:46pmI agree with Lieberman. Since the Pentagon Papers case we have the Freedom of Information Act, Congress and the President got together and let the federal district courts resolve conflicts between Constitutional powers and First Amendment Rights. If the NYT and WaPo don’t like what is omitted or redacted they can sue the government.
If instead the media choose to subvert government employees to violate their oaths and the Espionage Act the reporter, the editor and the publisher should be charged as conspirators and the outlet slammed with a RICO suit. This is not about “informing the public” should they happen to get information– this is about undermining and destroying government policies they don’t like.
Report Post »NJartificer
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:59pmI love it when you can hear their a**hole’s slam shut………..Two faced POS
Report Post »NickDeringer
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:50pmGood luck with that, Joe. Oblame-a will investigate the NYT right after in investigates ACORN.
Report Post »robert5635
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:42pmIf that is true, then all of us, excluding any who haven’t read a shread of the cables, are guilty of treason. Come and get me congress and obamination, you can flood the prisons with political prisoners to bandy in front of all your foreign buddies and pals, so they can really see how sick and twisted this country is under your ‘rule’. Y’all should be pulled out of office for treason against the Consitution by any means needed.
Report Post »ronmorgen
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:41pm“WikiLeaks is confirming Iraq’s WMD.”
Report Post »http://www.atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/
ronmorgen
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:32pmOur leaders are the ones getting bent out of shape over these leaks. Could it be they have something to hide? Oh yeh, they consistently lie to the American people and to other countries. I suggest the real problem is that we need new leaders.
Report Post »Sinista Mace
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:18pmI suggest we investigate Lukewarm Lie-berman and his political contributions.
Report Post »MeteoricLimbo
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:55pmhmmmm, how does one go about Insuring Domestic Tranquility..
Report Post »robert5635
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:44pmSmith&wesson
Report Post »frankee47
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:50pmlieb,is he or is he not dead.i never knew where he was comming from.
Report Post »Chet Hempstead
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:48pmThe only thing the government can accomplish by trying to intimidate the press is make it harder for Americans to read this material. The rest of the world will still have full access. Lieberman is living in a warped looking-glass universe where keeping secrets from the American public has become a primary goal, rather than an unfortunate side effect of the need to keep secrets from other countries.
Report Post »MozarkDawg
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:47pmFromtheBasement
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:27pm
They can’t charge him with treason. He’s a not a US citizen.
*****
Thank you — it astounds me how many people I see/hear all over the place passing out the conjecture … really, shouldn‘t this have been Lieberman’s immediate answer? Is even he not aware that one must be a citizen of a country in order to commit treason against it?
Report Post »Tired_of_the_lies
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:28pmLieberman – how did that little fascist get put in charge of anything. What a terrifying thought…
Sure Joe, prosecute all the media, end free speech, take more of our civil liberties.
Report Post »BreatheFree
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:19pmNo, no, no — the press should be investigating the government, not the other way around.
If there was a crime committed, it was the people sending the classified information to wikileaks, NOT wikileaks passing it on to news organizations.
Governments are having to adapt to the transparency that the internet brings, and I for one welcome it!
Report Post »GhostOfJefferson
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 9:04amHear hear!
Report Post »US_SOLDIER
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:07pmHow about investigating Hillary Clinton for espionage and subversion? Anyone calling for that? didn’t think so
Report Post »mossbrain
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:32pmWikileaks founder Julian Assange called for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s resignation
Report Post »ADDICTED TO TRUTH
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:57pmGoogle Pentagon Papers for history on this subject. The NY Times and the Wash. Post have both been here before. The “Leakers” in this case were NOT convicted.
On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court decided, 6–3, that the government failed to meet the heavy burden of proof required for prior restraint injunction. The nine justices wrote nine opinions disagreeing on significant, substantive matters.
Thomas Tedford and Dale Herbeck summarize the reaction of editors and journalists at the time:
As the press rooms of the Times and the Post began to hum to the lifting of the censorship order, the journalists of America pondered with grave concern the fact that for fifteen days the ‘free press’ of the nation had been prevented from publishing an important document and for their troubles had been given an inconclusive and uninspiring ‘burden-of-proof’ decision by a sharply divided Supreme Court. There was relief, but no great rejoicing, in the editorial offices of America’s publishers and broadcasters.
—Tedford and Herbeck, pp. 225–226.[16]
A majority of the justices ruled that the government could still prosecute the Times and the Post for violating the Espionage Act by publishing the documents. Ellsberg and Russo were not acquitted of violating the Espionage Act; they were freed due to a mistrial from irregularities in the government’s case.[3
Report Post »Rob
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:05pmWhat a loser this Loserman is…. he should be thrown to the lions WITH the leaker. Both anti-Americans.
Report Post »Stronge
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 7:47pmHow would the USofA charge Assange with treason?
Report Post »MeteoricLimbo
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:03pm@ STONGE ,Methinks the jury has not convened….perhaps time will tell
Report Post »Waiting4George
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:08pmPlease look up Daniel Ellsberg Pentagon Papers Viet Nam War:
In late 1969 – with the assistance of his former RAND Corporation colleague, Anthony Russo — Ellsberg secretly made several sets of photocopies of the classified documents to which he had access; these later became known as the Pentagon Papers.Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of US government decision-making about the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers.On June 28, 1971, two days before a Supreme Court ruling saying that a federal judge had ruled incorrectly about the right of the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers,[4] Ellsberg publicly surrendered to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. In admitting to giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:
I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.[4]
He and Russo faced charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and other charges including theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Their trial commenced in Los Angeles on January 3, 1973, presided over by U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne, Jr.
Report Post »FromtheBasement
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:27pmThey can’t charge him with treason. He’s a not a US citizen. They can charge him with espionage, though, if he were to ever set foot on US soil. I suspect there is much that the international community, and NATO could do with him as well. I also suspect that it may be going down now, with him in British custody. He needs to be dealt with, but my bigger is finding out who was feeding him the documents in the first place. This nation has a major security leak that needs to be plugged.
Stronge
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:56pm“They can’t charge him with treason. He’s…not a US citizen.” is the right answer.
Report Post »dcwu
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 12:05amThat 1917 law was an anti free speech effort by Woodrow Wilson.
Report Post »heavyduty
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 7:47pmI know that this doesn’t have anything to do with the story. But it just has to be told that Shepherd Smith just said on his show on Fox that Rep. Barton didn’t get the energy position that he wanted. Because he apologized to BP. He said like he was disgusted that Barton would apologize. Well to anyone that knows anything about the oil field would know that BP wasn’t responsible for the blowout.
It was the roughnecks job to watch the sensors and fluid levels in the pits. It was the drillers fault that the alarms were turned off. BP was forced into paying the 20 billion dollars for their slush fund. Because most of that money still hasn’t gotten to the people that need it. Probably because the politicians have already divided it up for themselves.
To bad Shepherd can’t see the truth either. Because he kept calling BP liars, when they were the only ones standing up and taking charge of the situation while our learless feader took vacations, and played golf.
Report Post »ADMIRAL747
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:05pmI thought it was a faulty blowout preventer and bad concrete but I agree nonetheless. Sarah Palin got Exxon to pay for the Valdez spill, so she claims. I live on the coast, red tape & Obama fouled the cleanup. That is a whole different story. BP is ultimately responsible for the spill in my opinion but this administration totally screwed up everything since and including the moratorium. I see where you are going and ole Shep Smith shows left-leaning tendencies quite a bit.
Report Post »Stronge
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 7:43pmTreason against whom?
Report Post »M31Sailor
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:16pmDuh
Report Post »Stronge
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 12:17am@m31sailor – where do you think Julian Assange is from?
Report Post »TXPilot
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 7:42pmEver had a choice between two options that both stink like crap?……oh yeah…I forgot….the last Presidential election…….top down….bottom up….inside out folks……
Report Post »ADMIRAL747
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 7:41pmSuggesting and Acting are two different things. This should have been done in the 30′s..
Report Post »heavyduty
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 7:39pmI think the New York Times should be sent to Russia. Then lets see how long they last after they print classified documents. I would bet the cowards would turn the creep in that gave them the documents.
Report Post »M31Sailor
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:15pmFunny that the NYT can print the Wikileaks but not the climategate leaks from East Anglia Univ. Their excuse was that they were stolen from the pseudo scientists that manufactured false data. to support false claims. American journalism at it’s finest.
Report Post »Sailor
Malachai
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 10:42am“In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble.”
- Ron Paul
Report Post »heavyduty
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 7:37pmWell what’s going to happen to the freedom of speech?
RobertCA
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 7:42pmHow about investigating the crooks & traitors in Washington .
Report Post »12 gauge
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:01pmSorry, couldn’t listen to this one. Lieberman’s voice immediately knocks me out like some sort of crazy “sleeper hold” and it’s not my bedtime yet…
Report Post »what4
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:02pmKerry needs to go, The fcc needs to go, the epa needs to go…and we can keep Freedom of speach!
->Click For Brain Enema<-
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:11pmI wonder who’s ass he is trying to save.
Report Post »PeterThePainter
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 8:21pmDog and Pony show for our viewing…o.k….so if you arrest me I will release all of it and expose the corruption in Governments…He’s going to release it anyway….good, Put him in jail and lets get it over with. The ny times (lower case) should report, as if everyone does not get the same info. Latest scam…Popular Mechanics released the GM’s Volt…gets 32 mpg city and 36 hwy…and our Government bought more that 25% of all built. On EV it got an average of 33 mi. What a joke buy a Prius at half the cost and get better milage. GM just invested 500M in a plant in Mexico where average Mexicans workers are paid $4.50 per hour < their trying to reduce that to $2.50 per hour and that includes benefits, US tax payer paid for that auto plant………………lets compete in this World economy. 2 years ago Siler was selling for $11 per ounce….now its broken $30 in the last few weeks, although our Government says there's no inflation….someone in Congress needs to go buy a loaf of bread. Real estate prices are being destroyed….regulation by regulation and moratorium….because I'm sure we will hear soon it is a Right to have a home provided by the Government….at a cost you can afford. Google electricity prices after 2011, then look at the cost, permmiting…you have to post a 100K bond to your electric provider and they will not pay you back for power "you" have placed onto the grid. What a Dog and Pony show.
Report Post »Cemoto78
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:13pmForget investigating the New York Times, investigate Congress-ALL of them. Let’s start with some prison sentences for tax evasion, like Rangel. Next some time for Maxine Waters and her fraudulent acts, then move on to Barney and Dodd for their complicate acts to push Freddie and Fannie. There is enough investigating in Congress to last many years. And by no means does this just include the Democrats as both parties are just as criminal as the other. RICO laws were invented for this Congress.
Report Post »AlaskaRick
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:27pm12 GAUGE, that’s some real funny stuff and true!
Report Post »BMartin1776
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 9:28pmCurious was Woodward and Bernstein investigated? Was any other news organization investigated when they released a big story?
Hey Joe why dont you start looking into your own in DC, the radical media that puts out lies and special interests first? How bout you explain how this Manning bypassed security protocols to get the data in the first place. Or are you telling us that any last wrung PFC in an intelligence position can just download data onto an erased Lady Gaga cd?!
Many are on the fence with this story but the more finger pointing I see towards Assange the more I wonder WHO is really behind it.
The govt had no problem shutting down Prada Rolex knockoff sites yet didnt lift a finger with this Wiki thing until after they FOLLOWED through with their threat of releasing data? Is it just me or did they sit back and let this happen… maybe to set the stage for what the FCC is wanting to do to control the net?! I know I know conspiratory ideas………. the crazy talk of yesterday is fact today.
Stop playing the game. Stop the animals in their tracks, expose them for what they are liars, cheats, self serving creatures with a ‘do as I say not as I do’ attitude. Take back America though http://www.savingtherepublic.com
Report Post »TheGreyPiper
Posted on December 7, 2010 at 10:32pmHuh? Treason has never been contemplated as free speech, if that is the trollpoint you’re trying to make.
Report Post »LUDWIKA BRONISLAWA
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 3:24amReceiving stolen government property is a crime, right? Stealing government property is a crime, right? You cannot shout fire in a movie theatre. Freedom of speech (if you want to really stretch it to apply here) does have consequences sometimes. You can tell all kinds of lies about someone, but you will propbably get sued. Why doesn‘t assange want to expose some of China’s, or Iran’s, or Russia‘s ’government secrets’?
Report Post »GREENART
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 6:18amYes let’s start in Washington that is where the corruption and and traidors are.
Report Post »grandmaof5
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 8:31amSure, count on that happening! If he was so concerned where was this call after the first leak? Where is he on the love of his country and siding with the Dems destroying it? These people all need to be brought up on treason charges for aiding and abetting Obama and his thugs in tearing down our republic.
Report Post »Pizza Royalty
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 8:40amExactly! And who is really behind these leaks???
Report Post »AnnMarie
Posted on December 8, 2010 at 1:44pmGo for it Joe… This is not a freedom of speech thing. It was information STOLEN and the guy who posted it knew it was stolen… How the private was able to obtain and transmit this information is something they should research, but, this is by no means a first amendment issue. IT IS A CRIME…..
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