As I said, business as usual...

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Reporter in jail - Public is the loser in fight over sources

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

July 9, 2005

That Judith Miller of The New York Times sits today in a federal jail outside Washington, D.C., chills the spine.

Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, was subpoenaed by a special federal prosecutor to testify before a grand jury in connection with the government's investigation of a possibly criminal leak by Bush administration officials of the name of an undercover CIA officer to columnist Robert Novak. Miller refused. She went to jail, refusing to testify to the grand jury, keeping her promise of confidentiality to an anonymous source for a story that, ironically, she never even wrote.

As the Times said in an editorial Thursday, Miller is not above the law. But she "acted in the great tradition of civil disobedience that began with this nation's founding, which holds that the common good is best served in some instances by private citizens who are willing to defy a legal, but unjust or unwise, order."

Think about all that for a moment. And let's bring the story home.

Much of what San Diegans know today about the massive City Hall pension fund scandal they know because of the hard digging of Union-Tribune news reporter Philip J. LaVelle and the separate work of editorial page editor Robert A. Kittle. The pension fund debacle is under investigation by a variety of agencies, including the U.S. attorney. Some criminal behavior at City Hall has already been alleged.

What if a federal grand jury suddenly wanted to know the anonymous sources of some of LaVelle's stories or Kittle's editorials? California has a shield law offering some protection for journalists in state court, but that would be of no use in a federal case. LaVelle and Kittle, like Judith Miller, could face contempt of court if they declined to testify.

Who would be the loser? LaVelle, Kittle and the newspaper, to be sure. But, more importantly, would be you, the reader. You need to know, you have a right to know, as much as can be reliably told about the inner workings of San Diego City Hall or the White House.

And that's why Judith Miller's plight should send a chill up your spine, too.

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me@rescam.org

West can't stop terrorist bombings

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
THE NEW YORK TIMES

July 9, 2005

Thursday's bombings in downtown London are profoundly disturbing. In part, that is because a bombing in our mother country and closest ally, England, is almost like a bombing in our own. In part, it's because one assault may have involved a suicide bomber, bringing this terrible jihadist weapon into the heart of a major Western capital.

That would be deeply troubling because open societies depend on trust – on trusting that the person sitting next to you on the bus or subway is not wearing dynamite.

The attacks are also deeply disturbing because when jihadist bombers take their madness into the heart of our open societies, our societies are never again quite as open. Indeed, we all just lost a little freedom Thursday.

But maybe the most important aspect of the London bombings is this: When jihadist-style bombings happen in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground, that becomes a civilizational problem. Every Muslim living in a Western society suddenly becomes a suspect, becomes a potential walking bomb. And when that happens, it means Western countries are going to be tempted to crack down even harder on their own Muslim populations.

That, too, is deeply troubling. The more Western societies – particularly the big European societies, which have much larger Muslim populations than America – look on their own Muslims with suspicion, the more internal tensions this creates, and the more alienated their already alienated Muslim youth become. This is exactly what Osama bin Laden dreamed of with Sept. 11, 2001: to create a great gulf between the Muslim world and the globalizing West.

So this is a critical moment. We must do all we can to limit the civilizational fallout from this bombing. But this is not going to be easy. Why? Because unlike after Sept. 11, there is no obvious, easy target to retaliate against for bombings like those in London. There are no obvious terrorist headquarters and training camps in Afghanistan that we can hit with cruise missiles.

The al-Qaeda threat has metastasized and become franchised. It is no longer vertical, something that we can punch in the face. It is now horizontal, flat and widely distributed, operating through the Internet and tiny cells.

Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists – if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings – or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way – by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a

jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.

What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed.

Many people said Palestinian suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians decided that it was in their interest to have a cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold. The village said enough was enough.

The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day – to this day – no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.

Some Muslim leaders have taken up this challenge. This past week in Jordan, King Abdullah II hosted an impressive conference in Amman for moderate Muslim thinkers and clerics who want to take back their faith from those who have tried to hijack it. But this has to go further and wider.

The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.

Reporter in jail - Public is the loser in fight over sources

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

July 9, 2005

That Judith Miller of The New York Times sits today in a federal jail outside Washington, D.C., chills the spine.

Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, was subpoenaed by a special federal prosecutor to testify before a grand jury in connection with the government's investigation of a possibly criminal leak by Bush administration officials of the name of an undercover CIA officer to columnist Robert Novak. Miller refused. She went to jail, refusing to testify to the grand jury, keeping her promise of confidentiality to an anonymous source for a story that, ironically, she never even wrote.

As the Times said in an editorial Thursday, Miller is not above the law. But she "acted in the great tradition of civil disobedience that began with this nation's founding, which holds that the common good is best served in some instances by private citizens who are willing to defy a legal, but unjust or unwise, order."

Think about all that for a moment. And let's bring the story home.

Much of what San Diegans know today about the massive City Hall pension fund scandal they know because of the hard digging of Union-Tribune news reporter Philip J. LaVelle and the separate work of editorial page editor Robert A. Kittle. The pension fund debacle is under investigation by a variety of agencies, including the U.S. attorney. Some criminal behavior at City Hall has already been alleged.

What if a federal grand jury suddenly wanted to know the anonymous sources of some of LaVelle's stories or Kittle's editorials? California has a shield law offering some protection for journalists in state court, but that would be of no use in a federal case. LaVelle and Kittle, like Judith Miller, could face contempt of court if they declined to testify.

Who would be the loser? LaVelle, Kittle and the newspaper, to be sure. But, more importantly, would be you, the reader. You need to know, you have a right to know, as much as can be reliably told about the inner workings of San Diego City Hall or the White House.

And that's why Judith Miller's plight should send a chill up your spine, too.

Is America slowly goosestepping into the future?

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[quote][b]Reporter in jail - Public is the loser in fight over sources

Is America slowly goosestepping into the future?

What has Goosestepping (Refering to Hitler) have to do with this DB?

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[quote][b]Reporter in jail - Public is the loser in fight over sources

Is America slowly goosestepping into the future?

What has Goosestepping (Refering to Hitler) have to do with this DB?

Are we slowly losing our rights in the name of a greater agenda?

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[quote][b]Reporter in jail - Public is the loser in fight over sources

Is America slowly goosestepping into the future?

What has Goosestepping (Refering to Hitler) have to do with this DB?

Are we slowly losing our rights in the name of a greater agenda?

1. That law has been on the books for 30 years.
2. What Agenda The war? Terrorism?

Seams to me the Terrorists have an agenda
and because of them we have to give up some freedoms.

You compare our President to a Monkey, That's what the terrorist do.
I am not calling you a Terrorist DB, I just am sick and tired of unfounded claims and innuendo's.

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[nevermind]

The slow nibbling away of our civil liberties is feeding
directly into the terrorist hands. They have caused us to
react to them, and not the other way around.

And please don't question my patriotism as an proud American just
because I refuse to follow the parade marching down the street.

Personally, I'm getting sick and tired of both the left, and
the right in American politics. Anyone in the middle is left
high and dry, and are considered suspect by either side of the
political spectrum. Everything is so black and white nowadays,
I try to see in shades of grey.

It would scare me just as much if the Supreme Court was packed
with liberal judges, and the same goes for a court packed with
conservatives.

I generally don't go into specifics, because I would have to write
a book here, otherwise individuals are open to attack without
such through documentation.

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The slow nibbling away of our civil liberties is feeding
directly in the terrorist hands. They have caused us to
react to them, and not the other way around.

And please don't question my patriotism as an proud American just
because I refuse to follow the parade marching down the street.

I am not quetioning you Patriotism. (Ever)

If we don't change things DB, the Terrorist will get there way.

If you have better suggestions what would they be.....

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[quote][quote][quote]Reporter in jail - Public is the loser in fight over sources
Is America slowly goosestepping into the future?

....
Seems to me the Terrorists have an agenda and because of them we have to give up some freedoms.
....

Tell me, why must I give up some of MY freedoms because of a terrorist agenda? That tells me that the terrorists are making changes I don't like and want. So, you're saying that because the terrorists have an agenda and we turn into a police state, I get thrown in jail because I'm out past curfew and suspected of being a terrorist.

I don't know what people here are going to feel about what I'm about to say, but here goes.

I feel that since EVERY AMERICAN has the right, under the Constitution, to keep and bare arms, LET'S DO IT! If the damned terrorists know that everyone here is packing and loaded for bear, they won't dare mess with us!

Can anyone here guess what single, lone country, in the world, has never been attacked nor in any war? I know and will not give clues. There's a reason that country has not....

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

[quote][quote][quote]Reporter in jail - Public is the loser in fight over sources
Is America slowly goosestepping into the future?

....
Seems to me the Terrorists have an agenda and because of them we have to give up some freedoms.
....

Tell me, why must I give up some of MY freedoms because of a terrorist agenda? That tells me that the terrorists are making changes I don't like and want. So, you're saying that because the terrorists have an agenda and we turn into a police state, I get thrown in jail because I'm out past curfew and suspected of being a terrorist.

I don't know what people here are going to feel about what I'm about to say, but here goes.

I feel that since EVERY AMERICAN has the right, under the Constitution, to keep and bare arms, LET'S DO IT! If the damned terrorists know that everyone here is packing and loaded for bear, they won't dare mess with us!

Can anyone here guess what single, lone country, in the world, has never been attacked nor in any war? I know and will not give clues. There's a reason that country has not....

Swiss

If everone had weapons what makes you think that would stop the terrorist?

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[quote][quote][quote]Reporter in jail - Public is the loser in fight over sources
Is America slowly goosestepping into the future?

....
Seems to me the Terrorists have an agenda and because of them we have to give up some freedoms.
....

Tell me, why must I give up some of MY freedoms because of a terrorist agenda? That tells me that the terrorists are making changes I don't like and want. So, you're saying that because the terrorists have an agenda and we turn into a police state, I get thrown in jail because I'm out past curfew and suspected of being a terrorist.

I don't know what people here are going to feel about what I'm about to say, but here goes.

I feel that since EVERY AMERICAN has the right, under the Constitution, to keep and bare arms, LET'S DO IT! If the damned terrorists know that everyone here is packing and loaded for bear, they won't dare mess with us!

Can anyone here guess what single, lone country, in the world, has never been attacked nor in any war? I know and will not give clues. There's a reason that country has not....

Swiss

If everone had weapons what makes you think that would stop the terrorist?

FYI, all Swiss men are in the Guard, and keep their rifles at home. The reason
the Germans never invaded Switzerland was that it would have taken 5 divisions just to hold the place.

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Surprise, surprise, as a left leaning moderate I fully support our right to bear arms.

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