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Comment by john_b | Hacker News Reader

It's chilling how far those in power will go to silence even the possibility of dissent that honest journalism provides. In this case, the Obama justice department inherited a case from the Bush era and fought it all the way to the supreme court to get a journalist to incriminate his alleged source.

The information disclosed by Risen was already out there and the damage was done. That it embarrased a previous administration did not seem to matter. The DOJ seems to have wanted at least one head to roll in order to send a message to government insiders: "talk to the press at your own peril."

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First, Eric Holder did not ultimately compel Risen to name his source.

Second, this wasn't a corruption or torture report, and the stakes weren't "embarrassment". The CIA turned a Russian nuclear engineer who fed to Iran flawed plans for the electrical firing mechanism for a nuclear explosive device. Risen learned about that from that Russian engineer's CIA handler, and after the NYT spiked a story he wrote about it, wrote a chapter a book about it.

It wasn't necessary to ultimately compel Risen to have a chilling effect on journalism, much like it wasn't necessary to ultimately imprison Thomas Drake for the rest of his life to have a chilling effect on IC employees who seek to expose waste, fraud, and abuse.

I agree with your perspective on the wisdom of Risen's reporting, but still think we should celebrate the heroic act of journalists protecting their sources even when they're on the hot-seat.

One doesn't necessarily have to be indicted or prosecuted for people to feel as though their rights are threatened. Needlessly forceful/aggressive FBI raids (Binney), wiretapping press organizations (AP), endless secret grand juries (WL), and border searches (Poitras) are all examples of the many ways USG has intimidated actual and potential whistleblowers and reporters.

>Second, this wasn't a corruption or torture report,

where nobody has been punished too despite the severity of the crimes.

>The CIA turned a Russian nuclear engineer who fed to Iran flawed plans for the electrical firing mechanism for a nuclear explosive device.

sounds like that story where "flawed" plans happened to be a great help to Iran nuclear bomb program and allowed for significant progress in the program. One can't not to wonder whether the "flaws" were real, just insufficient, flaws or just a cover up, and the real goal was to actually sell the info and speed up the Iranian program. With CIA and Russian double-agents you would never know. One would say "follow the money" but it is obviously impossible here. So the only thing left is just what the reporters do - shed the light. Undermining NPT - that is what actually happened, under whatever premises or covers - is among the largest threats to the world (incl. obviously US) security. Be it due to ineptitude or evil will - without bringing it to light there is absolutely nothing to prevent such things from happening again. This check on the rest of the powers is exactly what the "4th branch of power" exists for, and that is exactly why the rest of the powers so fighting it.

> silence even the possibility of dissent that honest journalism provides

The crime being prosecuted is not dissent. Dissent enjoys nearly unlimited legal protection in the U.S.

The crime being prosecuted is the disclosure of classified information by government employees. This is often accompanied by, but completely independent of, criticizing the government. We can and have prosecuted people for leaking secrets that made the government look good, i.e. people who divulged too much detail about the Bin Laden assassination.

If you voluntarily become an agent of the government, you voluntarily give away your right to criticize it without consequences. We haven't had a draft in a hell of a long time; there's really nothing wrong with that.

Stop equating dissent and disclosure of classified information. They are completely different things. You can criticize the government without sharing its secrets; you can share its secrets in a way that glorifies it.

You can't always intelligently dissent from what you are told by the government without an insider providing you details, however.

We don't even know what our own government is doing in our name. We need its secrets so we can hold them accountable to what we are actually willing to have happen.

Otherwise, we are mere passengers or rubber stamps for their bad behavior-- which is the case, currently.

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