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New York Times Leaking Classified -- and Doctored? -- Information, Again

Should Journalists Be Allowed to Publish Classified Documents?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No

    Votes: 16 100.0%

  • Total voters
    16

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
Staff member
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Check out this link then vote.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzYwMzMwN2QzMjZkNmNhOTliOGY0YzZiMzBkYWFmYjI=
New York Times Leaking Classified -- and Doctored? -- Information, Again [Mario Loyola]

I would just like to point out that the New York Times appears to have doctored the slide referred to in this brilliantly well-timed bit of election propaganda by removing the classification markings which are invariably found at the top and bottom of these slide (even when they are unclassified — and this one was classified, as Central Command has already confirmed). I want to know whether there is any level of national secret the Times is not willing to betray for the political advantage of its pet causes. And I would like to know what else they may have doctored on the slide.
And while we're at it, I would love to understand why the law doesn't prohibit the propagation of strategic national secrets in wartime — which has always been understood as treason.
01military_lg.jpg

A slide titled "Iraq: Indications and Warnings of Civil Conflict" lists factors that are destabilizing Iraq.
 

Dutch-NJ

New member
And while we're at it, I would love to understand why the law doesn't prohibit the propagation of strategic national secrets in wartime — which has always been understood as treason.

Why limit punishment to "wartime?" Treason can be committed ANYTIME.

It could be argued that the U.S. hasn't been at "war" since WWII.

Read about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were executed for passing secrets to the USSR.

I remember the Rosenberg case well. Many Americans thought they shouldn't be executed.

Ironically, the Soviet Premier agreed with the execution. The Rosenbergs had become useless to the Soviets and were expendable. The Russians knew how to deal with traitors.

I often wonder what the American Left thinks would happen if America lost a "war" with Islam.


  • Separation of Church and State?
    • Pray to Allah 5 times a day or.... off with your head.


  • Pornography?
    • Own it, have it, or look at it.... off with your head.


  • Freedom of speech?
    • Say the wrong thing.... off with your head.
 

Junkman

Extra Super Moderator
Lets get the terms correct here....... the New York Times didn't lead the story, some bureaucrat that works for the United States Government leaked the information to the New York Times. A journalist wrote the story and presented it to the editor of the New York Times and it is the editors decision to either run the story or kill it. In this case, the editor chose to run the story and that is the end of the story. You might feel that it is treasonous to publish such information, however, it isn't the obligation of the news to be in the censorship business. I believe that the news media should just present the facts as neutral as possible and let me decide how to interpret it. As for disclosing government information, that issue was decided with the Daniel Ellsberg issue many years ago. Once we start down the road of removing Freedom of the press, we will be no better than the countries that we despise. Junk....
 

mak2

Active member
I think whoever had the security clearence and let the infromation out should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I cant remember all the bad things they told me they would do to me if I disclosed any classified information, but none of it was good. Why are we talking aobut the newspaper? I bet no one there has a secret clearnence.
 

Dutch-NJ

New member
Are there any old timers on this forum who remember WWII?​

American troops and supplies were transported to Europe by slow ships. German submarines could by seen from beaches on the east coast.
Those German U-boats were waiting to sink our ships and drown our troops.

The date, time, and cargo of ships leaving U.S. ports was TOP SECRET. There was even an expression, “Loose lips sink ships.”

loose_lips_logo.gif

There are stories (some true I’m sure) of dock workers killed and thrown in the river for getting drunk and running their mouths.

The GIs had a different expression.


poster01.jpg

I doubt any newspaper would have had the balls to print details of ships even if that information was given to them.

http://www.archives.gov/research/ww2/photos/images/ww2-26.jpg

We now have government employees leaking information.

Find them, give them a speedy trial, then shoot them. That WILL take care of that, and send a message to the others.
 

Junkman

Extra Super Moderator
There have been many times in the past that newspapers have sat on a story because it wasn't an appropriate time to publish the story, for either political or security reasons. During the Second World War, there was lots of news that wasn't reported on a timely basis, but the news media had the information. You are trying to compare grapes to oranges and apples to grapefruits. You can't compare today with 50 or 60 years ago. Today, there is more information that is out there then ever before, and it isn't just the news media that is putting it out. Our own government has put things out in the public that astonish me, such as the US Government paper that explained how to build a nuclear weapon. Sixty Minutes disclosed that was what Iraq was using as its guide under Saddam when the Israeli's bombed them. Junk...
 

Junkman

Extra Super Moderator
Didn't take very long to prove my point that information is all over the WEB. This time, the New York Times has pointed it out and our government has removed the offending material... Who posted this information in the first place????? Guess Who........

U.S. pulls Web site said to reveal nuclear guide


Questions raised about whether Iraq documents gave too much information

NBC News and news services
Updated: 8:42 a.m. ET Nov 3, 2006

WASHINGTON - The nation’s top intelligence official took down a government Web site with captured Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi documents, after questions were raised whether it provided too much information about making atomic bombs.
In a statement Thursday night, a spokesman for National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said his office has suspended public access to the Web site “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”

The action came after The New York Times raised questions about the contents of the government site,
called the “Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal.” The Times reported Thursday night on its Web site that weapons experts say documents posted on the government site in recent weeks provided dangerous detail about Iraq’s covert nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC News that outside experts, including the director of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, informed the Bush administration that it might have inadvertently publicized how-to-manuals for making nuclear bombs.
A diplomat affiliated with the IAEA said its inspectors were “shocked by the explicitness of the content” on the Web site and that a senior agency official conveyed the concerns to U.S. diplomats in Vienna, where the agency is based.

But Matthew Boland, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the IAEA, said Friday that “Ambassador (Gregory) Schulte did not receive any protest or expression of concern from the IAEA on this issue.”

16,000 documents
Officials acknowledge that sensitive documents — with information on nuclear triggers and other technology — could have been on the public Web site, which had some 16,000 documents in it.

One official working on the problem said that as few as a dozen documents might be in the sensitive category.

Outside nuclear experts suggested to the New York Times that the documents could have helped rogue states like Iran with their nuclear programs.

But the U.S. officials were doubtful, telling NBC News that Iran's nuclear program was already highly sophisticated last spring and summer when it was cited for violations by U.N. inspectors. The most sensitive captured Iraqi documents were not posted until September. The sources said that makes it very unlikely the documents contributed anything to Iran's nuclear program.

The Iraqi documents include information on Saddam's nuclear program — most of which dates back to the first Gulf War. Two CIA weapons experts — first David Kay and then Charles Duelfer — concluded in 2004 and 2005 that while Saddam might have wanted to revive his nuclear program, it effectively ended with the first Gulf War.

That said, a top official told NBC News that Iraq's program was relatively sophisticated — and that the documents could have been helpful to terrorists or others trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Lawmakers wanted release
Pressed by Republican members of Congress,
Negroponte’s office last March ordered the unprecedented release of millions of pages of Iraqi documents, most of them in Arabic, collected by the U.S. government over more than a decade.

Intelligence officials had objected at the timebut were overruled by President Bush.
According to the Times, conservative politicians and publications hoped analysis of the some 48,000 boxes of documents seized in the Iraq invasion would reinvigorate the search for proof that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

Bush cited concerns about that as a major cause for the Iraq invasion. No such weapons have been found.

Until this week, the information had been posted gradually on public Internet servers run by the military. In announcing the postings, Negroponte’s office said the U.S. government had made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, their factual accuracy or the quality of any translations, when available.

NBC News' chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell as well as The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
 
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