I wonder how they feel about this:

Bush officials mount campaign against media shield bill, say it could harm national security

By PETE YOST

Associated Press Writer

The Associated Press

updated 8:00 a.m. ET, Fri., April. 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Michael Mukasey and three other top Bush administration officials are weighing in against legislation that would allow reporters to protect the identities of confidential sources who provide sensitive, sometimes embarrassing information about the government.

The "Free Flow of Information Act" proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., could harm national security and would encourage more leaks of classified information, the four officials wrote in letters to senators made public Thursday.

The legislation gives an overly broad definition of journalists that "can include those linked to terrorists and criminals," wrote Mukasey and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.

"All individuals and entities who 'gather' or 'publish' information about 'matters of public interest' but who are not technically designated terrorist organizations, foreign powers or agents of a foreign power will be entitled to the bill's protections," Mukasey and McConnell stated in their joint letter.

Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, responded: "My staff met today with DNI and DoJ officials regarding the concerns expressed in the letter, and we are considering them."

"I think the legislation has an important purpose," Specter added. "I think we can make reasonable accommodations to their concerns, and we're working on it."

In a separate letter, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the nation would be more vulnerable to "adversaries' counterintelligence efforts to recruit" those shielded by the bill.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the bill would erect roadblocks to gathering information "from anyone who can claim to be a journalist, including bloggers" and Internet service providers.

The opposition of the top Bush administration officials follows recent high-profile episodes in which reporters have fought efforts to reveal their government sources.

Former USA Today reporter Toni Locy is seeking to reverse a contempt of court citation for refusing to reveal her Justice Department and FBI sources for stories about the criminal investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Among the government leakers of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, it turns out, were President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to identify Libby to investigators.

The leaks of Plame's identity occurred after Plame's husband publicly accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald eventually won convictions against Libby for perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence.

Co-sponsors on the bill include Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Charles Schumer of New York and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, along with Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Richard Lugar of Indiana.

"We've already sought to address these security concerns in a careful way," Schumer said in a statement. "The administration ought to overcome its visceral dislike of the media and do the right thing."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23952454/

But they would probably easily give up their sources and sing like a bird in the spring time. Traitors...

The term 'fucking whores' was made just to describe these craven opportunistic corporate lick spittle toadies that we have in Congress.

'Fucking whores' is multi-gender and multi-race and fits them like a glove. My own representative, Dave Camp, is such a whore for Dow Chemical that they probably have standing reservations at the Ashman Court Hotel with orders for roses, chocolates and champagne...

My money is on the idea that the elephant never forgets and they are just letting it cool down before a mad scramble after the next attack that the administration is going to proclaim that they also didn't know a thing about and were somehow powerless to stop.

And some people call me an optimist...

I wonder if this current rash of FAA ballsyness is to get them off the backs of the carriers. All you have to hear is that the FAA is 'abusing their power' and you know that the fix is in...

Those poor airlines with their inept management and their golden parachutes while the majority of the workers get the 'golden shower' from management's boneheaded decisions...

If not Yoo then the Bushies would have found someone else to write what Yoo did.

But to employ Yoo does give a sheen of acceptance for what he did. Didn't the world jail 'good German's' that were 'just following orders' after the fall of Nazi Germany?

The apathy and mute reaction is what staggers me but it is easier to torture 'them' than 'us'.

It's proof that people will give up almost everything (including their children) to feel the illusion of being 'safe' and if you can keep them scared they will comply and feel obligated in doing so.

The Nazi leaders were right. So deadly, cut to the bone right.

It's proof that you can learn things from the past and repeat them rather than the other way around, otherwise this would be such a sick coincidence. Is Bush like Hitler? No, Cheney is too smart for that.

But Kristol (and his father) isn't about making sense. Only noise to drown out the creaking and moaning and crashing of everything that they stand for. Read Blumenthal's bit about Cheney not growing up.

It's all bullshit, all the time. They are, as my grandfather would say 'So full of shit their eyes are brown' and have fallen for the number one problem of purveyors of disinfo-tainment (Fox News): 'believing their own press releases'.