Comment by tptacek
8 months ago
As soon as he realizes (or a reasonable person would realize) that the group chat is not a hoax, and that he is getting confidential military information over that channel, his continued membership in the channel demonstrates intent to receive the information, which makes anything he writes about it in the future legally problematic. It's complicated and it's not like just receiving classified information from a source is intrinsically criminal, but it'll be the entire fact pattern he'd be confronted with by prosecutors.
The fourt cases related to Watergate established that receiving classified information is not illegal, and affirmed 1A rights. I'd argue it's a exactly the same as a journalist overhearing this motley crew discussing the war plan in the halls of the White House without being aware there's a journalist nearby. I wouldn't bank on the current supreme court to uphold precedence, or the current administration persecuting the journalist for "hacking" into a "secure" government chat group - which is what they'll allege without evidence. I suspect the journalist cares more about national security than the cowboys in the chat group, and is acutely aware that they are a target for hacking by nation-states, which would leak classified information.
> I would bank in the current supreme court to uphold precedence
Counting on SCOTUS to respect precedent at this point is either extremely optimistic or extremely naive.
Oh, that was a typo. I do not trust the current supreme court to uphold precedence over naked partisanship.
The US Supreme Court hews close to precedent. The only two significant overturned decisions in the last decade are Roe v Wade, which regardless of your views on abortion was a poorly reasoned decision, which was really judicial legislation, that had to be essentially amended several times (whether abortion should be permitted is a separate question from whether Roe was good law, which it obviously wasn't) and Chevron, which was contrary to the most fundamental principles of the rule of law (that is, that the interpretation of the law is a fundamentally judicial function).
Neither were really political decisions. The SCOTUS doesn't split along ideological or party lines all the time. It often splits in different ways, and often makes decisions on very politically heated topics unanimously. You should have more confidence in it. It is the least bad of your three major institutions of government by far.
To go back to Chevron, you have to look beyond the US and understand that for anyone else anywhere else in the world, the idea of the courts deferring in their interpretation of the law to executive agencies is just ridiculous. It never made any sense. Its result was inevitable: a new government was elected and suddenly the law changed overnight because government departments all published their new "interpretations" of the law. That is just silly, it makes a mockery of the principles of the rule of law, and it gives too much power to the government. Law should be made by parliament (which you call congress, for some reason) and rulemaking powers should be explicitly delegated to executive agencies where appropriate. Vagueness in the law should be interpreted and resolved by the courts, not by the executive in a way that is subject to political whimsy.
> The only two significant overturned decisions in the last decade are Roe [...] and Chevron
That's really not true; just a couple of the other major decisions overturned in the last decade:
Apodaca v. Oregon, holding that while the 14th Amendment did incorporate the right to jury trial against the States, it did not incorporate the unanimity requirement that the Supreme Court has found against the federal government in the 6th Amendment against the states. (reversed in Ramos v. Louisiana, 2020.)
Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, holding that a certiied public-sector union could collect an “agency fee” attributable to representational activities but not other union functions to represented non-member employees. Reversed by Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31 (2018).
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>To go back to Chevron, you have to look beyond the US and understand that for anyone else anywhere else in the world, the idea of the courts deferring in their interpretation of the law to executive agencies is just ridiculous
My interpretation is difficult and complex domain specific regulation were handled by agency experts, and not lawyers. It is now up to congress to detail very specifically this potentially difficult regulation and to quickly adjust when research changes.
Is my interpretation incorrect? Since to me this current approach sounds terrible, inflexibly and set-up to fail.
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> The SCOTUS doesn't split along ideological or party lines all the time.
It happens enough on cases that matter that it's farcical not to put (R) and (D) after the names of the justices, for clarity, when discussing them in the press.
The fact that this is getting downvoted into the ground really shows the delta between reality and what the members of this site want to convince themselves is reality.
The majority of SCOTUS decisions are unanimous.
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There should be protection for people that receive information in this manner that is equivalent to whistleblower protection. No law abiding citizen should ever be prosecuted in favor of protecting a government fuck up.
I agree. I'm remarking positively, not normatively.
"his continued membership in the channel demonstrates intent to receive the information"
Nope. His authority as a journalist prevails. He published the article -- so his intent was to do his job as a journalist, and the public has a right to know.
National security or institutional trust was not damaged by the journalist -- only by the ignorance of the politicians now running our military.
The information was newsworthy and in the public interest.
Publication did not cause harm (and you might argue that dropping actual bombs caused much more harm).
The information was obtained legally and without foresight.
The journalist has an obligation to report the information if it serves the public interest, especially if it reveals systemic failures, endangers democracy, or impacts public policy.
I think you are talking past each other. OP's point was about future publications (possibly including confidential information only shared through that Signal group).
That's the part you're concerned with? Criminal liability of the journalist while the alcoholic was sending government secrets over a signal group chat to unverified members?