One of the key points for me is that no one alleged that Plame was doing anything illegal, or even wrong, they just leaked her CIA connection. Bush however is being accused of doing something illegal, unConstitutional, and plain old wrong. This seems a significant difference in terms of moral culpability to me. In the Plame case we have a treasonous leaker, in the Bush case we have a whistleblower. It’s absurd to suggest a moral equivalence between the two.
A free press is a cornerstone of democracy. While I believe the US press as a whole rarely lives up to their watchdog claims, this is a case where something that would make our founding fathers roll over in their graves has come to light because the press is fulfilling a watch dog function.
I can’t imagine Jefferson or the other hombres happy with the sheeplike acceptance that americans have as their personal liberties get curtailed in the name of fighting “the enemy” and “war on terror”. Standard refrains of repressive countries everywhere. Standard justification by totalatarian leaders for sacrificing personal freedoms.
Anyone who exposes government criminality should be given a medal, and that applies no matter which party is in the White House. It’s OUR frickin’ government and we have the right to know just what the hell they are up to. 99% of all “national security” claims are just excuses for covering up corrupt or embarassing information.
The issues are separate, but both pieces of information should be considered simultaneously to determine your reaction.
In this case we are weighing the degree with which the govt. can quickly track down the bad guys vs the personal freedom of every single US citizen.
For me, I think our freedom from this type of intrusion into our private lives outweighs the positives of this law.
Hi , If the NSA was stockpiling viral weapons that attack people’s health and left them unsecured and people around the globe were getting sick, we would hold the NSA responsible . They did stockpile viral weapons , but the subject of attack were computers and the victims were the innocent people . For the NSA to blame microsoft would be equivalent to the NSA blaming Pharmaceutical companies for not having an anti-vemon to some viral weapon.
- The NSA should have secured the weapon better.
- The NSA should have acknowledged the breach immediately and provide the solution. TO STAND BY QUIETLY AND WATCH INNOCENT PEOPLE’s businesses and sometimes potentially health, because of lack of access to health data, be destroyed in not responsible .
- Politicians of all stripes should stop wasting time and money on investigating security breaches for which there is no evidence and focus on this and other areas where there have been real security breaches even of the NSA.
For some reason I thought this was about something else until I checked the datestamp.