Another "No Good" Bill

12 December 2009

Yesterday, Senate bill S448 cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee and will be allowed to go to the full Senate for deliberation and eventually vote.
What S448 basically does is to give extra protection to ‘journalistic’ sources from prosecution in the case of leaking of National Security confidential information.

The bill had been stalled in Committee for some months and finally made it out with a vote of 14-5 in its favor. Several amendments were voted down and some others approved. One of the amendments that were voted down was one from CA Senator Dianne Feinstein who, together with IL Sen. Durbin, wanted to add a more precise definition of ‘journalist’.

What S448 practically does is to give unprecedented protection to those ‘journalists’ who receive and divulge leaked classified information. The ‘journalist’ will be protected from having to be subpoena in court to uncover the source of the leak in the case of an investigation. Exclusion from the protection of the bill are cases where criminal activity or terrorist activity is involved, but even in such cases, the decision will be made by a court, not the NSA or intelligence community.

One of co-sponsors of the bill is the so-called Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham from South Carolina.

In a statement made after the vote, Alabama Senator Jeff Session, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, explained his opposition to S448, stating that the Democrat majority in the Committee voted down amendments to this already gravely flawed bill, that would protect our troops on the battlefields.

“As our troops prepare for a surge in Afghanistan, the majority blocked an amendment to protect the secrecy of troop movements and battle plans,” Sessions said. “The rejection of these and other amendments recklessly imperils the security of our citizens and our soldiers, and leaves in place a bill that is deeply and fundamentally flawed.”

Sen. Session further explained his concern about the collateral damage such bill is invoking. Speaking of the already existing provisions about judicial scrutiny for subpoenas, Sessions added.

“These are strong protections. But this legislation goes much, much further. It takes the extraordinary step of transferring core determinations about national security from the executive to the judicial branch. Any single judge would effectively have the authority to kill a criminal or national security investigation -- even if the subpoena is legally sound -- simply because that judge makes a political decision that the investigation is not in the public interest.”

And considering the track record of the political agenda driven federal judges and of Attorney General Eric Holder, the bill could very well be a costly one for our troops involved in the war on terror and for the general security of our country.
Cases like the leaking of the NSA terrorist surveillance program by the NY Times and the CIA secret terrorist jails by the Washington Post will become more the norm than the exception, especially if the ‘journalistic’ entity has a personal political agenda.

And again the Washington establishment is using the US Military and the security of the whole Nation to further their cause. Considering the bedfellows the Media and the Liberal/Progressives have become, this bill allows said Media to further the contorted and misguided agenda of the anti-Military Left and allow transparency where it is not needed, namely the world of intelligence gathering for purpose of protecting America from further terrorist attacks, all in the name of the right to know of the people.
Again, the pressure of a minority of people who demand more information they should have, appears to have trampled the right of the rest of the American people and the American Military to expect the highest degree of protection from the Government. This minority does not recognize the reality that when classified information is leaked to the press, it also ends up in the hands of America’s enemies, who are very good at exploiting it.

Thankfully S448 is far from becoming law, as it has to be voted by the whole Senate and then reconciled with the corresponding bill from the House, although the current performance of members of Congress does not give a very good feeling about doing the right thing to the American people. Hopefully the delay will stretch to November 2010 and after those elections, hopefully the make up of Congress will be more favorable to the protection of America.

And these are my thoughts!
Frank “Semperpapa”