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March 30, 2006
Who's Spying on Americans?
Russ Feingold — who earned fawning attention from the press by screeching that President Bush deserves censure or worse for authorizing eavesdropping on international al Qaeda phone calls — is right about one thing: Americans should not be illegally spied on. That's why it's heartening to see an appeals court rule that Rep Jim McDermott (D-WA) violated federal law by turning over an illegally taped telephone call to the media.
The recorded conversation was between Newt Gingrich and other House Republican leaders in 1996. A Florida couple who later pleaded guilty to unlawfully intercepting the call passed it along to McDermott, who ironically was serving as the top Democrat on the ethics panel. After McDermott then handed it off to the press, a partial transcript was plastered across the New York Times and other papers. Gingrich was later fined $300,000 for minor ethics violations.
As Fox News reports:
Lawyers for 18 news organizations — including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post — filed a brief backing McDermott.
Apparently from the MSM's point of view, electronic eavesdropping is not such a sin after all — provided all the parties are American, and there are no terrorists or national security interests involved.
Hat tip: Bergbikr.
Posted by Van Helsing at March 30, 2006 1:57 PM
Comments
Thanks for the heads up on this. The msm surely won't run with this--too damaging to Baghdad Jim. Anybody know what the penalties mey be?
Posted by: nikko at March 30, 2006 2:09 PM
McDermott has to pay John Boehner over $700,000. Most of it's legal fees.
Posted by: Van Helsing at March 30, 2006 6:23 PM
Hopefully Baghdad Jim's friends don't bail him out. Though if he has money left over from last political campaign he could use it [kinda fuzzy on the campaign laws] though that might put a pinch on his re-election campaign. Which would be amusing to watch as ol Jim has to economize.
Posted by: Anna at March 30, 2006 10:20 PM
Read a real conservative named Justin Raimondo.
Go to antiwar.com
Real conservatives know that government can't protect your civil liberties and that war doesn't lead to smaller government.
Posted by: Lois Griggs at March 30, 2006 10:47 PM
