{"id":18487,"date":"2013-05-22T11:26:33","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T15:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=18487"},"modified":"2013-05-22T11:26:33","modified_gmt":"2013-05-22T15:26:33","slug":"theres-a-spy-in-the-house-of-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=18487","title":{"rendered":"There's A Spy In The House Of State"},"content":{"rendered":"

From what I've read, Fox New reporter, James Rosen didn't learn about the FBI's investigation into his solicitation of classified documents until this weekend, when the Washington Post did their story<\/a>. And the WaPo only found out about Rosen's investigation because they were looking into the investigation and prosecution of the person who leaked the documents - they didn't know Rosen had ever been investigated as part of the matter; and neither did Rosen. Rosen wasn't charged. He was never told of the investigation. <\/p>\n

That means at least three years passed between the investigation and the discovery of the investigation. And, if the WaPo didn't basically stumble upon the info, the investigation may have never been discovered. <\/p>\n

But the media (who love stories about themselves), and the GOP (who jump at any chance to make Obama look bad), and the permanently-paranoid, are all sure this is intimidation. But how was the DOJ \"intimidating\" anyone ?<\/p>\n

Surely, to intimidate someone, the person has to know<\/em> he's being intimidated. Knowing that someone out there is watching you and can act against you is what intimidation means<\/i>. But if you don't know they're looking at you (as Rosen didn't), and they make no effort to tell you (which the DOJ didn't), and make no effort to retaliate (which the DOJ didn't), they're not intimidating you. They're investigating you, spying on you maybe, but definitely not intimidating.<\/p>\n

But one can be intimidated after the fact, sure. Reporters can worry that future attempts to procure classified info might get them investigated. But why wouldn't they already assume this? In instances like these, reporters have traditionally been allowed immunity from prosecution (as Rosen was), but that's not the same thing as immunity from investigation.<\/p>\n

Surely you, as a reporter, would expect that the govt would run down every connection to the leaker in such a case - especially when your methods were so sloppy<\/a>. You would likely be more surprised to find out that you weren't<\/i> investigated, since that would mean the govt was letting an obvious connection to the leaker go unexplored - and that might be an even better story to investigate. <\/p>\n

The options are: assume the government is laughably incompetent when it comes to tracking down and investigating leakers and will not look at you when they find emails from you<\/i> asking the leaker to get more and more of the information the leaker is charged with leaking; or you can assume the government is going to look at everyone who has made significant contact with a leaker, especially<\/em> the person soliciting and receiving the information that the leaker is charged with leaking. The first option seems unlikely. If you're encouraging someone to break the law, you should expect the govt to wonder why. <\/p>\n

OK, I get that the media is in frenzy mode right now, but this one still seems way overblown. Rosen attached himself to someone who broke the law (at Rosen's urging, no less); and the govt did what it should do in a case like this; it figured out where the info went, and for what purpose. Which necessitated looking at Rosen. Then it ultimately determined that since Rosen was a journalist, doing journalistic things, and it did what govt has always done in such cases: it declined to bring charges. Rosen suffered no real harm. He got his story. His source got prosecuted. Rosen didn't even know anything had happened.<\/p>\n

Or, if that's too much - if looking at a journalist to verify that he's acting as a journalist, and not as a foreign agent (or whatever) is too much - what should the process be? When the govt discovers a leaker of classified info, and the info is received by someone who works at a media outlet, should the government immediately stop all investigation of the receiver? If so, I can tell you what the official job title of all future spies will be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From what I've read, Fox New reporter, James Rosen didn't learn about the FBI's investigation into his solicitation of classified documents until this weekend, when the Washington Post did their story. And the WaPo only found out about Rosen's investigation because they were looking into the investigation and prosecution of the person who leaked the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}