Repub states "A free press undermines our country"

[lazs2]

stringer... if the government has no right to privacy then anyone releasing classified info can not be prosecuted... an oath would be meaningless.

How do you interpret "harm"?  if money is used to buy a suitcase bomb for instance and it is used to blow up some blue city....

We find out latter that the money was being transferred around in bank accounts right under our noses...

How do you think the NYT would report that one?  

"Why oh why oh why did our government not protect us?  could they not see this coming? "   "they are bumblers and buffoons who don't care about the people!"

Nope... it has been my experiance that the right wingers excuse any abuse of power so long as it is their guy/government doing the abuse and the left wingers (including the NYT) excuse any abuse of power so long as it is their guy/government in power.... in the end.. the individual gets screwed because all abuses are excused and embraced every other term or so.

Sorta like... when the right is in power they go after the SLA and kill some lefties and some children in lefty groups and the right wingers cheer...

when the left is in power they go after religous and right wing militias and kill the children and the left wingers cheer.

lazs

[uvwpvW]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
You say secret and private are different things.  If your definition is that the difference is that the confidential information owned buy public vs private entities, and that makes all the difference, then I disagree with you.

pri•vate (prî'vĭt)
adj.

1
a) Secluded from the sight, presence, or intrusion of others: a private hideaway.
b) Designed or intended for one's exclusive use: a private room.

2
a) Of or confined to the individual; personal: a private joke; private opinions.
b) Undertaken on an individual basis: private studies; private research.
c) Of, relating to, or receiving special hospital services and privileges: a private patient.
d) Not available for public use, control, or participation: a private club; a private party.

3
a) Belonging to a particular person or persons, as opposed to the public or the government: private property.
b) Of, relating to, or derived from nongovernment sources: private funding.
c) Conducted and supported primarily by individuals or groups not affiliated with governmental agencies or corporations: a private college; a private sanatorium.
d) Enrolled in or attending a private school: a private student.
e) Not holding an official or public position: a private citizen.

4
a) Not for public knowledge or disclosure: private papers; a private communication.
b) Not appropriate for use or display in public; intimate: private behavior; a private tragedy.
c) Placing a high value on personal privacy: a private person.

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
The making public of confidential information is wrong regardless of it's ownership, unless that confidence was done in violation of law.

Whether it is right or wrong is a subjective judgment call. If it would interest the public to know it is usually right to publish. I take it you consider it wrong for the NY Times to publish this particular story. I think they were right to publish it and inform the public of what this government is doing to spy on them.

[lazs2]

upwzxvb.... I would agree that it is good to report any spying or abuse of power that the government is doing on citizens.

I would agree that if a blue city were vaporized with funds that bought a suitcase nuke....that were exempt from being spyed on...

that we should accept that as the price of freedom.  I know I would.   How bout you?

lazs

[uvwpvW]

Yes, except I don't discriminate on the political affiliation of those sacrificed on the altar of freedom. You’re an intriguing person Lazs. You expose the views of a Libertarian, yet you work for the government, seem to want to limit the freedom of the press and have no quarrels about the government spying on the American public. Intriguing indeed!

[lazs2]

You are wrong on every single assumption you made about me except that I work for local government.    I am the head of a wastewater facility that is funded by local fees for my service.  it is an enterprise fund seperate from the general fund.

I also have to bid on my job with private firms of which many exist and many water and wastewater facilities are run by them.... also supported by the fees charged and also an enterprise fund.

libertarian is fine but just a bunch of wimpy, inefective eggheads.

I said nothing about limiting the freedom of the press any more or less than limiting anyones freedom.  the "press" to me is just individuals with a forum.   No more or less sacred than me or even you.

Where you got the idea that I espouse the view that the government should spy on the people I have no idea.

I want a very limited government and I would be happy to have more freedom even if it meant a vaporized blue city... I have said as much.

I believe that I have allways laid out my views as honestly and simply as I can.   A trait that I find lacking in the socialists on this board even more than the right wingers.

I vote republican simply because they are walking toward socialism and discrimination while the democrats are running toward it.   No other party has a chance so they are not worth my time.

I would fight beside any side that wants to limit government.... I would have fought for the south in the civil war even tho I would then have to fight against slavery.   I believe in human rights.

I am not a libertarian... I am an individualist.  I believe in individual human rights that were given us by our creator and not up for a vote.

lazs

[Gunston]

Originally posted by lazs2


I vote republican simply because they are walking toward socialism and discrimination while the democrats are running toward it.   No other party has a chance so they are not worth my time.

lazs

lazs2

That is a great line, I agree with it 100% and I hope you don't mind but I will be using it.

[Maverick]

Stringer,

If you think there is no privacy in the govt. I invite you to test this theory. In theory all govt. offices and buildings belong to the public, correct? The holders of those offices are subject to public review then, is this also not correct?

Now go to your nearest representative in govt., either city, county ,state or federal and tell them you want access to all of their files to determine if they are doing their job correctly. Let me know how it goes please.

[Stringer]

Mav,
I'm sorry, I thought your next post would be showing me where it says in our Bill of Rights or our Constitution that the gov't has a right to privacy.

Your little scenerio does not show me, in the Constitutional sense of Individual Rights that the Gov't enjoys that right to privacy.  What it says is that the employees of the Gov't, especially at the level of local offices, are not empowered to divulge information, which is as it should be, just as I am not empowered to divulge information my company deems inappropiate.  

I'm not debating with you whether or not the Gov't should protect it's secrets, I think the Gov't has that OBLIGATION.  I'm saying Rights ARE NOTand CANNOT and SHOULD NOT be given to Gov't, only to individuals.

And if the Gov't has a right to privacy, then why do they ASK the press not to divulge information, why don't they just say it is our Right to have you not publish this, and we will prosecute you for violating our Right?

[Maverick]

Ya know Stringer, you are talking about something totally different from anything I have posted on. I have no clue as to what you are relating to in the thread any more. I don't know where you got that I had something to say about giving rights to the govt. here.

I just find it ludicrous that anyone thinks the govt., at any level, does not have things they do not want spread out that aren't even categorized as classified.

[Stringer]

Originally posted by Maverick
Actually the governement has tremendous rights to "privacy"  

Mav,
That's what I'm responding to, and where I got the idea that you thought the government had privacy rights.

I hope that clue helps.

And I also said this:

I'm not debating with you whether or not the Gov't should protect it's secrets, I think the Gov't has that OBLIGATION.

So I guess I'm not ludicrous.

But maybe Rumsfield is ludicrous:

, Rumsfeld signed up as a leading co-sponsor (see Document 9, page 14) of the Moss bill for freedom of information, and denounced what he called the Johnson administration’s “continuing tendency toward managed news and suppression of public information that the people are entitled to have.”

His words when he co-sponsored the FOIA

[Holden McGroin]

uvwpvW,

Your definition, I assume, is from American Heritage.

While the definition of private as opposed to public in a situation such as ownership of land does differentiate between government and an individual, the use of the word in regards to what should remain confidential is open to a more broad definition.

A corporation can be private, yet can have many people.  A private corporation can own private information. Therefore private information can be owned by a consortium and not require individual ownership.  So your requirement of individual is a guideline of grammer and not a in any sence a legal definition.

I note that you did not bold this:

---
4
a) Not for public knowledge or disclosure:
---

Confidential information certainly falls within this definition, so in the sense that private and confidential can be synonymous, information about military movements or weaponry secrets, or whether a certain detective will be staking out a house somewhere, (while all this is of govermental and therefore public) the information would be considered confidential: not for public knowledge or disclosure, and could therefore be considered private.

Knowing what the government is doing to spy on me is not necesarily a good thing, the local police do clandestine survellance, and stake out suspected criminals.  If each morning the newspaper printed where all the cops were going to be and who they were going to be watching, it would be a lot easier for criminals.

[midnight Target]

If the local paper knew all of this "clandestine stuff" then the cops should be fired.

Completely blows me away that people can actually agrue to have their rights reduced... sad really.

[Holden McGroin]

I am not argueing to have my rights reduced MT, I am just saying that reporters need to excercise some judgement.  With the 24 hr news cycle now, the scoop is more impoprtant than the effects of making the story public. The responsibility of the press to take a step back and excercise some judgement every once in a while is not recognised.

If they came accross some information that it would be reasonable to assume there may be damage to an ongoing investigation, then there should be at least some thought as to whether they should print it or not.

I am asking the impossible, that reporters use some descretion when the situation warrants.

[Shuckins]

Ya know...a couple of months ago some of the very people waxing indignant about the White House releasing the name of a supposedly "secret CIA" agent to the press are now flip-flopping on the issue of secrecy.

If releasing the name of this supposed undercover agent, whose status was apparently known to every journalist in Washington, was a crime then in what way is this different?  In one case, if we follow your convoluted and partisan logic, the Bush administration is vilified for releasing information to harm an agent, and in the second case it is condemned for wittholding information to protect a security program tracking terrorists.

And in both cases, the press was a ready accomplice to the release of this "sensitive" information...and should remain untouched.  Even if the press gets its hand on such information it is under no obligation to print it, especially if the editors have half a brain and an ounce of common sense and integrity.

How can the government maintain the security and safety of its citizens if an irresponsible press continues to blow the whistle on its clandestine activities to garner sales, Pulitzers, and score political points against politicos it despises?

[Maverick]

Stringer,

My bad, I should have used a term like expectation of privacy rather than rights. I was referring to rights as a general term rather than a specific constitutionally related idea.