Bush Threats Against News Media Largely Hollow
Law Professor Geoffrey Stone writes that the Bush Administration's recent threats to prosecute reporters and publishers for printing classified information is not only unprecedented but unlikely to succeed.
the President and some of his supporters have threatened to prosecute reporters and publishers for violating a provision of the 1917 Espionage Act, which provides in part that "whoever having unauthorized possession . . . of information relating to the national defense, which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States . . . willfully communicates . . . the same to any person not entitled to receive it . . . is guilty of an offense punishable by 10 years in prison."
Professor Stone provides three reasons these attempts will fail.
- "First, this provision was never intended to reach the press."
- "Second, if the section of the 1917 Act applied to journalists, it would unquestionably violate the First Amendment."
- "Third, if Congress today enacted legislation incorporating the requirements of the First Amendment, it could not reach the exposés published by the New York Times and the Washington Post, for they were clearly protected by the First Amendment. "
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