The first story on Countdown last night was about the Bush administration's actions to muzzle the Press by prosecuting reporters and their sources (government whistleblowers) for
violations of the Espionage Act.
The administration of President George W. Bush is mounting an unprecedented effort to crack down on leaks of government secrets, even as it is vastly expanding the range of information deemed too sensitive to share with the public.
(more on the flip)
That twin effort has raised fears that the White House may succeed in shutting off the flow of such information by threatening to jail those who leak secrets and those who receive them. [...]
Many see the case, which relies on a novel interpretation of a 90-year-old espionage law, as a test of whether the administration can exercise new powers to shut off leaks that have been severely embarrassing to the White House. In particular, the Justice Department is aggressively trying to identify the sources for two explosive news stories: the existence of secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons in eastern Europe, and the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance programme.
The Washington Post reported at the weekend that dozens of officials from both agencies had been questioned recently by the FBI in the leak investigations.
"When you have more and more information being classified, and more and more secrets being kept, the only way reporters can get information is when internal whistleblowers provide it. And that drives this administration crazy," says Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Craig Crawford, a recurring guest commentator on Countdown, was on to discuss this matter with Keith. You could tell from what each of them was saying, and from their body language and tone of voice, that both were clearly distressed by this story. Unfortunately, the transcript for last night's show is not yet up, or I'd give you the exact words of the dialogue between the two of them.
Suffice it to say that they were both sounding alarm bells for our Constitution, and particularly for the seeming death of the First amendment freedoms which are the fundamental basis for our democracy. Freedom of the Press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly -- all being flushed down the toilet by Bush and the Republican Party.
I've never seen Olbermann quite so despairing. The cynical edge he always employs was in full force, but it was dampened by his openly stated realization that Bush and the Republican controlled Congress are suppressing our Nation's few remaining sources of dissent, with nary a peep from most of the media or the public.
And Craig Crawford, usually so full of snark expressed with his peculiar brand of over-the-top bonhomie, was unusually somber. Whenever I've watched him appear on Countdown before, he's always played the jokester with Keith, but last night you could tell he was clearly too worried and too concerned about what he sees happening to our free press to evoke his usual persona of detached sarcasm. The jokes were few, and no one was laughing, least of all Keith and Craig.
It had the appearance of two desperate men facing the gallows. It was hard for me to watch. It must be difficult to be the only sane voice on broadcast television these days. No one else on TV covers these stories of White House and Republican abuse as much as Keith does, nor is there any other news show like his that actually reports the reality of these various disasters rather than merely regurgitating the Republican spin.
So if you have time today, send Keith an email, and tell him how much we appreciate his show, and to keep fighting for us. Why? Because we need the guy more than ever.
Keith's email addy: countdown@msnbc.com
Update [2006-3-7 10:2:52 by Steven D]: At the suggestion of Rick Oliver in the comments, please contact MsNBC to let them know you support Keith and Countdown.
Email: feedback@msnbc.com
Webpage with other MsNBC contact info: LINK
Update [2006-3-7 12:19:46 by Steven D]: Off topic, but someone should do a diary about this story:
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney told Iran on Tuesday that enrichment of nuclear fuel on Iranian territory was unacceptable and warned that Tehran would face “meaningful consequences” if it continued to pursue its nuclear program.
“The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences,” Cheney said in a speech to the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC.
“For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table,” he said. “We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Update [2006-3-7 12:43:3 by Steven D]: Here's the transcript of Keith and Craig Crawford's conversation from last night's Countdown:
Good evening, Craig.
CRAIG CRAWFORD, “CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY”: Now only $14.92 on amazon.com.
OLBERMANN: That‘s excellent, Jim. Thanks for getting the monthly plug out of the way early. You got your sequel, pitting the public against the media is not enough. Now the administration threatening to prosecute reporters who uncover the misdeeds and the wrongdoing of the Alien and Sedition Acts, that repassed in the weekend I was away from my computer?
CRAWFORD: It‘s like the old Ed Bradley in “All the President‘s Men.” It‘s not like any of this matters, except maybe for the Constitution and the future of the country. This idea that the government has criminalized leaks leads to us a place where the only get is official information. We‘ve all seen talking points. We know that‘s not very informative.
OLBERMANN: What happened to First Amendment and freedom of the press, if we‘re go in those Bradley-an terms? Or if you are the leaker, what happened to the Whistleblower Act?
CRAWFORD: Well, I wrote in my book that the politicians had won the war against the media. These are the spoils of victory, Keith. Partly, we have a court system that makes it possible to put reporters in jail if they don‘t reveal their sources. It really does raise the question, is there any freedom of the press left if that sort of activity is considered criminal?
OLBERMANN: And there‘s an extra dimension, of course. Any time you see something like this attempted in a government—in this country or any other, you turn black into white and white into black, leaking the existence of secret CIA prisons or domestic spying that may or may not be legal, but certainly is without warrant, those acts, that‘s illegal, but leaking the name of a covert CIA operative whose husband criticized the administration is not illegal. How—what‘s the consistency here? Where do we get...
CRAWFORD: There isn‘t any. It‘s called situational ethics, I believe. And we have gotten to a place, I think, where, you know, democracy is threatened when the freedom of the press in this context, in the protection of sources so that we get independent information that is independent of government spin and propaganda, that is the essence of democracy. I don‘t think you have a democracy without a free press, and I don‘t think you have a free press with a legal system like we have now. There‘s an irony in that we are exporting democracy abroad and cutting a major artery of our own democracy here at home.
OLBERMANN: Yes, maybe we should serve here before we start shipping. The senators charged Mr. Specter today that there could be other secret surveillance programs based on what the attorney general had written. First of all, do we fear he might right? Or is it sour grapes because he was not consulted about the spying, or what is behind all this?
CRAWFORD: I think there‘s a big issue with members of Congress, Republican leaders. So many Republican senators, Keith, I‘ve always found—and Democrats, too, as a matter of fact, consider themselves senators first, protecting their branch of government, and then secondly their members of their party and protecting their president in power.
And then you have the interesting dynamic often in Washington, when even leaders in Congress who have a president from their own party, eventually there‘s conflict because of that traditional balance of power, the hostility between the branches.
So I think what‘s happening is a lot of members of Republicans in Congress are beginning to realize the Bush era is almost over, and they‘re starting preparing for the next era, and positioning themselves to be in power for that.
OLBERMANN: The Katrina tapes last week, specifically the release by the administration officials, or White House sources was the way “Newsweek” had put to the reference to the transcripts of the tapes from August 29 that put the president in a good light, not this stuff from the day before, which we‘re looking at here now.
But would it be a stretch to say that had someone in the administration take it upon himself, or herself, to leak that one tape before and absence of any of the other ones being leaked that that person might be under investigation right about now for releasing something the White House claimed was protected by executive privilege?
CRAWFORD: I wouldn‘t have foresaw the idea that there will be investigations of the leaks of tapes they didn‘t want released, as opposed to those that did.
We have an administration here that is really conducting a war on information that they don‘t want out, and those who disseminate information they don‘t want out. And I really think it‘s become a fairly serious matter.
OLBERMANN: Fortunately, the August 28th tapes were handed out by FEMA. So the idea where there was this huge crush to try to secretize everything, make secret every thing that the White House wants secret. Unfortunately, there‘s another branch of government that just sort of throwing tapes out there. So perhaps our best defense against infringement on democracy is the stupidity of the people trying to infringe upon it.
CRAWFORD: Always. It‘s still as we said before, a good time to reread George Orwell.
OLBERMANN: And yes, it‘s a quick read. And you can buy it a long with Craig‘s book. MSNBC political analyst Craig Crawford, also “Congressional Quarterly.” As always, friend, great thanks.
CRAWFORD: Thanks.