Re: Coulter: Like A Condom, The First Amendment Can't Always Protect You

Yea.....Well......I tend to agree with ya Mark.  I am still a bit confused how Manuel Noreiga is still propped up at FPC Miami, in 2010. 

 

I am still confused as to how all of the remaining imprisoned, Cuban Marielitos have yet to face a trial or any due process, since their imprisonment in the late 1970s and early 1980s.....

In this particular case, I believe that Assange is a threat to the United States, and homosexual Bradley Manning, who was having a "bad hair day" when he decided to reveal national secrets to Assange, is a traitor. 

 

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 9:29 PM, THE ANNOINTED ONE <markmkahle@gmail.com> wrote:

Ann Coulter normally gets the basic facts correct... Did she take a
Stupid Pill on this one ??  Julian Assange is not subject to US Law.
Just a tiny but important fact she neglected from her "story". Did
Tommy, Tommy Tommy, News help on this "article" ??

On Dec 15, 6:21 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> *Like A Condom, The First Amendment Can't Always Protect You*
> by Ann Coulter
> Posted 12/15/2010 ET
> Updated 12/15/2010 ET
>
> http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=40615
>
>  First of all, I feel so much more confident that the TSA's nude photos of
> airline passengers will never be released now that I know the government
> couldn't even prevent half a million classified national security documents
> from being posted on WikiLeaks.
>
> President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder will be getting around to
> WikiLeaks' proprietor, Julian Assange, just as soon as they figure out which
> law the New Black Panthers might have violated by standing outside a polling
> place with billy clubs.
>
> These legal eagles are either giving the press a lot of disinformation about
> the WikiLeaks investigation or they are a couple Elmer Fudds who can't find
> their own butts without a map.
>
> Since Holder apparently wasn't watching Fox News a few weeks ago, I'll
> repeat myself and save the taxpayers the cost of Holder's legal assistants
> having to pore through the federal criminal statutes starting with the A's.
>
> Among the criminal laws apparently broken by Assange is 18 U.S.C. 793(e),
> which provides:
>
> *"Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any
> document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, (etc. etc.)
> relating to the national defense, ... (which) the possessor has reason to
> believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage
> of any foreign nation, willfully communicates (etc. etc) the same to any
> person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same (etc) ... *
>
> *"Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or
> both." *
>
> As is evident, merely being in unauthorized possession of classified
> national security documents that could be used to harm this country and
> publishing those documents constitutes a felony.
>
> There's no exception for albinos with webpages -- or "journalists."
> Journalists are people, too!
>
> Depending on the facts adduced at trial, there are about a half-dozen other
> federal laws that might apply to the WikiLeaks document dump, including 18
> USC 641, which provides that any person who "receives" or "retains" a "thing
> of value of the United States" knowing "it to have been embezzled, stolen,
> purloined or converted" is also guilty of a felony, punishable by up to ten
> years in prison.
>
> Classified information is valuable government property.
>
> The entire public discussion about prosecuting Assange has been neurotically
> fixated on the First Amendment, as if that matters. Is Assange a
> "journalist"? What kind of journalist? Who is a "journalist" in the world of
> the Internet?
>
> Assange's lawyer, naturally, wraps his client in the First Amendment, saying
> Assange "is entitled to First Amendment protection as publisher of
> WikiLeaks."
>
> Even Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who wants Assange prosecuted -- bless her
> patriotic Democratic heart -- has responded to Assange's free speech defense
> by saying, "But he is no journalist: He is an agitator intent on damaging
> our government, whose policies he happens to disagree with, regardless of
> who gets hurt."
>
> All this is completely irrelevant.
>
> New York *Times* reporters are agitators intent on damaging our government,
> and they're considered "journalists." That doesn't mean they have carte
> blanche to hunt endangered species, refuse to pay their taxes or embezzle
> money. The First Amendment isn't a Star Trek "energy field" that protects
> journalists from phasers, photon torpedoes, lasers, rockets and criminal
> prosecutions.
>
> It's possible for the First Amendment to be implicated in a case involving
> national security information, just as it's possible for the First Amendment
> to be implicated in a case involving the Montgomery County (Ala.) public
> safety commissioner.
>
> This isn't that case.
>
> The government isn't trying to put a prior restraint on Assange's
> publication of the documents, as in the Pentagon Papers case (though it
> probably could have). It wouldn't be punishing Assange for his opinions. The
> government wouldn't be prosecuting Assange to force him to give up his
> sources -- and not only because we already know who his source is (a gay guy
> in "an awkward place"), but because it simply doesn't matter.
>
> Assange would be prosecuted for committing the crime of possessing and
> releasing classified national security documents that could do this country
> harm. The First Amendment has no bearing whatsoever on whether Assange has
> committed this particular crime, so whether or not Assange is a "journalist"
> is irrelevant.
>
> The problem here is that people get their information from the media, which
> is written by journalists, and journalists have spent the last half-century
> trying to persuade everyone that laws don't apply to them.
>
> If a fully certified, bona fide, grade-A "journalist," rushing to get a
> story, swerves his car onto a sidewalk and mows down 20 pedestrians, he's
> committed a crime. It doesn't matter that he was engaged in the vital First
> Amendment-protected activity of news-gathering.
>
> If Paul Krugman shoots his wife because she's talking too much when he's
> engaged in the First Amendment activity of finishing another silly column
> about the economy, he's committed a crime.
>
> Journalists can't run red lights, they can't print Coca-Cola's secret
> formula, they can't torture sources for information, and -- as Gawker Media
> recently discovered when it published a story on the new iPhone before it
> was released -- journalists can't misappropriate lost property.
>
> Fox News' Alan Colmes said he checked with Fox News legal analyst Andrew
> Napolitano, who told him there's no case against Assange because the
> government can't punish "the disseminator of information." They should have
> been on Gawker's legal team!
>
> If Assange had unauthorized possession of any national defense document that
> he had reason to believe could be used to injure the United States, and he
> willfully communicated that to any person not entitled to receive it,
> Assange committed a felony, and it wouldn't matter if he were Lois Lane, my
> favorite reporter.
>
> As I have noted previously, the only part of the criminal law that doesn't
> apply to reporters is the death penalty, at least since 2002, when the
> Supreme Court decided in *Atkins v. Virginia* that it's "cruel and unusual
> punishment" to execute the retarded.
>
> Also, journalists can slander people at will. That ought to make them happy.

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