There's no clear claim that any such oath -- or other law or guideline -- has been violated.
Consider this statement from Watkins' lawyer:
“It’s always disconcerting when a journalist’s telephone records are obtained by the Justice Department — through a grand jury subpoena or other legal process. Whether it was really necessary here will depend on the nature of the investigation and the scope of any charges.”
It'd look different if MacDougal were confident that the DOJ had violated process or law, including constitutional rights. As it reads, it sounds like he recognizes that right now, there's no apparent violations, and it's plausible that actions like this, disconcerting or not, may well be fully legal and justified.
Courts have consistently held that freedom of the press means freedom of the press-as-medium, not press-as-industry. Reporters have no more rights than you or I. What would the rationale be?
Sure. But it's prudent to assume that they'll do whatever they think is necessary, regardless of some particular reading of the Constitution. I mean, the Supreme Court could bless this practice, and who would stop them?
I do think the government has a certain prerogative to prevent leaks. Leakers need to realize the seriousness of the game they are playing and act accordingly. The Times and Post in particular make at least superficial efforts to ensure their sources are using good opsec, but I do wonder how hard individual reporters push back against using unsecured channels.
Nonetheless. In this case the reporter had a years-long relationship with the alleged leaker, that makes it much harder to cover all of your digital tracks vis-a-vis casual exchanges. We don’t know what exactly they have on this guy, but apparently it’s enough to establish that he lied to the FBI about his contact, if not anything pinning the leaks on him squarely. From the sounds of it, prudence may not have been sufficient.
> but apparently it’s enough to establish that he lied to the FBI about his contact
Yes, that's likely the key issue. Once the FBI etc are asking questions, it's already too late. So it's crucial to avoid attention. But that's very hard for leakers like this, where there are few possibilities, and all will likely be questioned.
> Investigators sought Ms. Watkins’s [sic] information as part of an inquiry into whether James A. Wolfe, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s former director of security, disclosed classified secrets to reporters. F.B.I. agents approached Ms. Watkins about a previous three-year romantic relationship she had with Mr. Wolfe, saying they were investigating unauthorized leaks.
Damn, I missed that.
So I wonder if Ms. Watkins can be prosecuted for lying to the FBI. Or is she immune because she's a reporter?
Shortly before she began working at The Times, Ms. Watkins was approached by the F.B.I. agents, who asserted that Mr. Wolfe had helped her with articles while they were dating. She did not answer their questions.
I did see that. But she must have said something to them. Just "no comment"? Or maybe she referred them to her attorney? And then her attorney asserts her right to keep sources confidential?
But when the government manages to plug a leak that happened to hand things to the media (compared to leaks that handed things to, say, foreign governments), people are surprised that the Constructionally guaranteed freedom of the press doesn’t actually include a right for the media to keep sources confidential. That’s why Judith Miller ended up in jail (and the story I heard was that her first legal team thought she had a right to keep sources confidential, which is why she spent so long in jail).
> people are surprised that the Constructionally guaranteed freedom of the press doesn’t actually include a right for the media to keep sources confidential
Is this really true? As opposed to the right getting trumped occasionally through some technicality? If it's true, why do reporters so commonly expect to keep sources private?
But maybe I've missed the point. To remain private, the source must not share their identity with the reporter. Is that it? That's why the NYT etc have Tor-based leak drops.
I’m sorry I didn’t see this earlier. My comment was based on what I remember from attorneys discussing why Judith Miller was in jail for refusing to name her source, and why she only got out of jail when Libby told her she didn’t need to keep protecting him.
According to Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporter%27s_privilege ) there is some kind of legal privilege, in some cases. But since reporters do end up in jail for contempt of court, it certainly doesn’t go as far as they seem to believe.
The thing about the Constitution is that until it gets to the USSC, everyone gets to have their own interpretation of it.
People on the left were screaming that GWB was violating the constitution. People on the right were screaming that Obama was violating the constitution. Globalists et al are screaming that Trump is violating the constitution. But it literally means nothing until the highest court rules on it.
It also means nothing when the highest court rules on it, unless lower courts and lower law enforcement agencies pay attention. The Supreme Court has a few police officers, but they just protect the court building and the people in it; they can't enforce the Constitution themselves. The only thing the Supreme Court can do is tell other people what the Constitution says.
So, the Supreme Court only has power as long as people respect the Constitution in the first place.
(I don't understand your point about the left and right; it's certainly possible that all of Bush, Obama, and Trump violated the Constitution. The article specifically calls out the Trump administration for "continu[ing] the aggressive tactics employed under President Obama." It's not true that Democrats and Republicans are the same, but it's also not true that they're dualistic opposites, where every virtue and every vice belongs to exactly one. Sometimes they both possess the same vice.)
Great point, the USSC decides like 50 cases a year? The next layer of federal courts decides thousands, and usually those are the tiebreaker appeals that don't get the writ of centiaori.
I have no idea what why you are getting downvoted. You speak truth:
>People on the left were screaming that GWB was violating the constitution. People on the right were screaming that Obama was violating the constitution. Globalists et al are screaming that Trump is violating the constitution. But it literally means nothing until the highest court rules on it.
Best to say it was the US highest court that has violated the constitution during all three administrations.
