Said Rand Paul, quoted in "Sen. Rand Paul wants to repeal the Espionage Act amid the Mar-a-Lago investigation" (NPR).
The Espionage Act was passed in 1917, a few months after the U.S. entered World War I. The original law made it illegal for people to obtain or disclose information relating to national defense that could be used to harm the U.S. or benefit another country....
Roughly 1,000 people were jailed for criticizing World War I....
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I agree with Rand, but only partially. There have always been consequences within the "Craft Of Intelligence" for sedition and duplicity. But this was almost never enforced within the framework of the law. Historically and usually - then as now - such crimes are punished extra-judicially. Just make those people disappear, just like Hillary's emails.
Some members of the leadership of the DOJ/FBI still believe that Donald Trump has been compromised by Russian Intelligence into becoming a secret agent for the Kremlin.
That argument is presented by former FBI counter-intelligence official in his book Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump.
I have read the book carefully, and I see in it two main themes:
1) Anything that Donald Trump ever did might be an indication that he is compromised by Russian Intelligence.
2) Nothing that Hillary Clinton ever did might be an indication that she is compromised by Russian Intelligence.
Strzok has been removed from DOJ/FBI, but his opinions continue to prosper there.
If Trump is re-elected to the Presidency, then DOJ/FBI will have to deal with more years of a President who is a secret agent for the Kremlin. That is why DOJ/FBI is trying to prevent his re-election, even though that effort might result in the election of Ron DeSantis.
During Trump's first Presidency, DOJ/FBI tried to lure President Trump into an obstruction-of-justice situation that would enable Congress to impeach and remove him from his elected position. That DOJ/FBI effort failed then and probably would fail again in a second Trump Presidency.
First generation German immigrants were watched heavily in Milwaukee is WWI. Perhaps there is need for it, but the way it is being used by the DOJ and the FBI today against a former President is bullshit.
Irony is, they are using it against a President who is the only one in ages to avoid starting any new wars. Brought some peace to the middle east with the Abraham accords, and somehow kept Putin from invading Ukraine.
I guess now, you are counter intuitive to the liberals running United States if you seek to avoid foreign conflicts. We love our foreign conflicts and dropping bombs on brown people, don't we? And if we're not killing people ourselves, we can't just let all that equipment lie around. There's a shelf life. We need to give it way so other people can bomb each other. Gotta keep that military complex fed.
At this point in my life I think Rand Paul is right on everything.
I also think he should have been my guy in 2016, not Marco Rubio.
Rand Paul is a great American.
In 2016 I avoided Rand Paul, and his politics are pretty much identical to mine.
In 2016 I was terrified of Donald Trump, and he turned out to be a great president.
They both had bad hair.
I'm a hair bigot. I had no idea. It's that fucking lookism that got me.
Damn it!
Now I'm on guard! It won't happen again!
The opinion that Donald Trump is an agent of the Kremlin has existed not only in DOJ/FBI.
In 2012 acting CIA Director Michael Morrell briefed Senator Harry Reid that Trump is an "unwitting agent" of the Kremlin.
I discussed that briefing in my blog article CIA Director Morrell's Briefing of Senator Reid About Trump in 2012.
This CIA belief developed in 2012, because Trump raised a stink about President Obama's birth certificate. CIA Director Morrell believed that Trump did so at the Kremlin's behest.
That’s one good thing that could come out of this. Unfortunately it’ll never happen.
Edward Snowden and Julian Assange were both charged by the United States for violating the Espionage Act.
You're not allowed to tell the American People that the Federal Government is basically spying on you illegally, and tracking everything you do, and everywhere you go. And even if you're in charge of the bullshit spying on your own people program...and you lie to congress about it...you can retire and become a contributor on CNN and MSNBC spewing your evil bullshit.
If you have a moral government the Espionage Act is needed. If you have an immoral government, the Espionage Act protects the corruption and immorality. Obviously today, it is being used for the later.
Getting this law repealed does more for America than the entire Biden Administration.
Even out of office, Trump continues to make America great again.
Mike Sylwester said...In 2012 acting CIA Director Michael Morrell briefed Senator Harry Reid that Trump is an "unwitting agent" of the Kremlin.
"Unwitting agent" Sure. If you are inconvenient to my goals, you are helping our country's enemies. Maybe not formally, you may not mean to, but you are doing their work. You're an unwitting agent.
The USA's Deep State perceives that Donald Trump intends to remove the USA gradually from NATO. That particular assessment is correct.
Here is a good summary of what the present DoJ is doing.
Just another reason for the Democrat party to hold their Wilson-Jackson Day celebration dinners. It is a wonder they never held "Sumter Day" dinners.
Fifty recent high-ranking US Intelligence officials signed a declaration that reports about Hunter Biden's laptop computer seemed to be Russian disinformation.
They really believe that Russia concocted that false story in order to help Donald Trump defeat Joe Biden in the 2020 election -- because Trump is a secret agent of the Kremlin.
That is the mentality of much of the leadership in the USA's Deep State.
I’ve worked on quite a few special access programs (SAPs) and the espionage act is appropriate. For example, a weapons platform I was read-in to decades ago was entirely based an obscure characteristic of an enemy weapon. One leak, re: that parameter, would have neutered our system and the hundreds of millions spent, put our national defense at risk, and ended the life of the agent who relayed the information.
It is also currently "illegal" to obtain information. Our progressive tech companies (Twitter, Facebook, et. al.) will not allow it. They literally block certain information from being posted, and thus, prevent others from obtaining that information. They throttle other information that they cannot legitimately ban by shadow-banning methods and other secret methods.
They are working hand-in-hand with our corrupt White House and President to control this flow of information. Any information which the Democrat Party wants people to be unable to obtain is marked as such so that their partners in the relatively very few tech companies which dominate the online space can make it illegal to post that information (and thus, illegal for people to obtain it.)
There is nothing new in the Democrat Party arsenal of weaponry to keep people ignorant of what that party is doing. And strangely, there appears to be only a single US oligarch interested in changing this paradigm: Elon Musk.
Mike Sly wrote: "This CIA belief developed in 2012, because Trump raised a stink about President Obama's birth certificate."
Yes, the CIA was very, very concerned that anybody of Trump's influencer status should raise any inference about Barack Obama's origins - being that he's not an American and never was.
We plebes, who the tech companies have identified as "non-influencers" can discuss it all we want, but no influencer is allowed to. That's why the tech companies spend so much time identifying who the real influencers are. It's to slap muzzles on them. They cannot muzzle us all, of course, but then again they don't need to. They only need to control the very much fewer "influencers."
When America’s Most Prominent Socialist Was Jailed for Speaking Out Against World War I
"Newspaper editorials across the nation cheered his conviction. 'His activities in opposition to the war preparation were dangerous,' the Washington Post declared. 'His conviction . . . serves notice to all that disloyalty and sedition, even though masquerading under the guise of free speech, will not be tolerated.'”
Democracy dies in darkness.
RideSpaceMountain: "..."Craft Of Intelligence"..."
There is no craft of intelligence.
If history is our guide 95% all "intelligence" is made up. Just like the hoax dossiers. And just about 100% of e everything real is missed. Certainly everything real and important over the last 70 years after the hard scrabble WW2 guys passed into retirement and were replaced by the effete and genteel ivy league "best and the brightest".
"Our Man in Havana" and "The Tailor of Panama" ought to be reclassified (see what I did there?) as documentaries.
Ok, let's try that again.
Now the Chi-Com wannabe left want everyone jailed for wrong-think against The Party.. and bad-think or criticism toward any Party apparatchik.
You might ever be forced by the left to worhsip the Cheney family.
@Drago
Not if we're talking about Russians or Saudis. The Khashoggi mess (literally) and the Litvenko hit were the worst hack-jobs I've ever seen.
Bonus! "Record Numbers of Migrants Cross Southern Border, on Track for Annual Total of Two Million."
NATO is an aggressive military alliance now, which has long outlived its usefulness, but Trump's recognition of that fact makes him a clear and present danger to the Empire of Lies, which will do anything to keep him out of office.
"They know they are lying. We know they are lying. They know we know they are lying. We know they know we know they are lying." What propaganda works in is judgement. We have to decide a lot of matters with insufficient evidence, and so we use our judgement, which they work to warp constantly, by lying constantly.
The steele dossier was wormold the character in havana
"The original law made it illegal for people to obtain or disclose information relating to national defense"
First Amendment? That's, like, more than 100 years old.
Sorry, Rand. As long as progs can exploit it as a tool to increase their power and squash the opposition, it stays.
" ... For this, we offer both our deepest apologies and our sincere admiration.”
Penence: voluntary self-punishment inflicted as an outward expression of repentance for having done wrong.
Talk is cheap and in this case it for sure is not penence. A substantial check would be appropriate. Give until it hurts.
The Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss would approve of Bland Paul.
I’ve worked on quite a few special access programs (SAPs) and the espionage act is appropriate. For example, a weapons platform I was read-in to decades ago was entirely based an obscure characteristic of an enemy weapon. One leak, re: that parameter, would have neutered our system and the hundreds of millions spent, put our national defense at risk, and ended the life of the agent who relayed the information.
This can all be true.
And yet, If the government wants to keep its nice, shiny things, it has to play with them in a proper, respectful manner or they will be taken away.
You can't keep Grandpa's antique train if you keep throwing it across the room at your sister.
The treason statute suffices
There is information that is known to the public, but for some reason the security agencies don't want you to know that the president knows it.
Former President Obama once said, in the context of the Hillary Clinton email server investigation:
"What I also know, because I handle a lot of classified information, is that … there’s classified, and then there’s classified. There’s stuff that is really top-secret, top-secret, and there's stuff that is being presented to the president or the secretary of state, that you might not want on the transom, or going out over the wire, but is basically stuff that you could get in open-source."
Obama was criticized for this remark because he commented publicly on the investigation, and because he revealed the skepticism with which top officials view (and often disregard) the U.S. government’s overclassification of information.
And yet there is truth in what Obama says. The government massively overclassifies, and even many highly classified secrets are “stuff that you could get in open-source.” It will matter a lot, in assessing Garland’s decisions, whether the information Trump had was closer to “really top-secret, top-secret” or to information available in public.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-mar-lago-search
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What if the CIA assumes that everyone who doesn't support a forward, provocative policy towards Russia is an "unwitting agent of the Kremlin?" And why assume that every cockamamie theory on the internet comes from the Kremlin, just because Russia gloms on to them? Are BLM activists witting or unwitting agents of Moscow because Russian trolls glommed on to their message for a time to promote disunity in the US?
The internet ate another one!
my comment at 8:09 makes no sense now
oh well
Rand Paul constantly has opportunities to use his power as a Senator to really make a difference. But he always cucks out. He'll talk against something, and then vote "present" or "yes". He'll talk against something, but refuse to filibuster or hold something up.
That he would respond to the Raid on Trump's house by babbling about "Lets repeal the espinoge act" is typical of him. This will go nonwhere and is just TALK. And will be forgotten tommorrow. BUt Senator Paul got to Grandstand, and be in the papers. Mission accomplished.
He reminds me of all the useless Conservatives who respond to any call for Judicial Reform by talking about "repealing the 17th admendment" as if that's ever going to happen. Ever.
It's not the words on paper. It is the tyrants who are the problem.
I am guessing there are at least 1,000 federal laws that could be repealed tomorrow and nobody would notice.
Why don't the Republicans make this a campaign issue?
If they win the house in the midterms, start repealing en mass...
Concurrently they could kill the hundreds of thousands of idiot regulations that stifle commerce.
I am dreaming of course...
Howard: "The Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss would approve of Bland Paul."
Sometimes you read Howard's posts and you are struck by the revelation that, yes, that's what he actually intended to post.
Recovered!
Thanks Althouse.
If I was writing some thesis paper on "lookism"
I think I would call it
Orange Man Bad
It's actually kind of interesting when a post of mine doesn't show up.
Usually I think the internet swallowed it. (The same damn internet that publishes one of my posts twice).
Other times I think, "that was too fucking off-topic, that's why Althouse removed it."
Have you ever notice that the thread usually starts off on-topic (unless somebody hijacks it early). But then people respond to responses. And by the end of the thread we're all ranting about some entirely different subject.
I mean, this thread could easily shift into James Bond movies, bad hair musicals, it could go anywhere. Pygmies in Jonny Quest cartoons.
"The Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss would approve of Bland Paul"
Remember when they were the Democrat's prime exemplars of wrongful application of justice ? Now "the current thing" is that they were rightfully executed enemies of the state!
I’ve worked on quite a few special access programs (SAPs) and the espionage act is appropriate. For example, a weapons platform I was read-in to decades ago was entirely based an obscure characteristic of an enemy weapon. One leak, re: that parameter, would have neutered our system and the hundreds of millions spent, put our national defense at risk, and ended the life of the agent who relayed the information.
And you are full of shit. If indeed this were true, you would not be publishing this information (no matter how vague) on a public forum.
I recall a Althouse warning about changing law based on high profile cases. I agree with Rand Paul from a libertarian standpoint but making the argument now is not the right time. The whataboutism is more valid than removing the law for which Democrats might try indicting and convicting Trump. That Democrats thought the law shouldn't apply to Hillary Clinton means it shouldn't apply to Trump; and if it doesn't apply to them, then it shouldn't apply to submariners or others.
The Espionage Act was used by our first Fascist president to imprison an opposing candidate, Eugene V Debs.
Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for President of the United States five times, including 1900 (earning 0.6 percent of the popular vote), 1904 (3.0 percent), 1908 (2.8 percent), 1912 (6.0 percent), and 1920 (3.4 percent), the last time from a prison cell. He was also a candidate for United States Congress from his native state Indiana in 1916.
Wilson actually used the "Sedition Act" as a pretext. The Sedition Act was a series of amendments to the Espionage Act.
Debs wasn't going to get many votes as a Socialist candidate but he opposed the war, which Wilson had run for re-election as opposed but on which he quickly changed his position once elected.
Like Trump, Debs was hated by the regime. Wilson pardoned many prisoners after the act was repealed in 1921 but not Debs. Debs' sentence was commuted by Harding after taking office.
The espionage act is not the problem.
We have been taught repeatedly that, despite wars and Islamic or earlier anarchist terrorism, it is completely unacceptable to investigate foreign nationals and recent immigrants from countries with which we are at war or are victims to terrorism. Educators at all levels and legal professionals playing activist in think tanks and law schools foam at the mouth over Japanese (not German) internment camps and use this singular historical example to pretend this is the only choice we ever made when attacked. Many who scream the loudest have been co-conspirators or spies themselves.
There is no need to conflate mass internment on war footing (practiced by all countries, not just by us) with investigating these communities for spies and radicals. We have selectively (ie. forgetting the mass internement of German-Americans) denounced using any practice to defend ourselves.
Even the well-educated seem ignorant of the many times we were attacked or nearly attacked on home soil during WWI and WWII, not to mention the enormous toll taken by anarchist immigrants and Marxist ones. And of course, now, Islamic ones.
We needed espionage laws to purge Russian, German, Eastern European, Cuban, Italian, Japanese, Middle Eastern, Israeli, Northern African, Chinese and other immigrants who came or come here to spy, manipulate, organize or commit violence in times of war and peace.
It's the people currently misusing these laws who merit scrutiny. History is context, not imperative. Conflation is more often idiocy than insight.
"Irony is, they are using it against a President who is the only one in ages to avoid starting any new wars."
No irony. The US was led into both World Wars against the desires of the overwhelming majority of her citizens, by Democrat Presidents.
I agree with Saint Croix.
At the same time, people who say "Dr. No" is the best Bond film are anti-Asian. It's "Goldfinger". It's got THE theme song and that scene with P-G in the hay.
"They really believe that Russia concocted that false story in order to help Donald Trump defeat Joe Biden in the 2020 election -- because Trump is a secret agent of the Kremlin."
Mike--do you really believe that they really believe that?
In 2012 acting CIA Director Michael Morrell briefed Senator Harry Reid that Trump is an "unwitting agent" of the Kremlin.
Please explain how Putin benefitted from $2 gas rather than $5 gas. Russia is simply a gas station with a military.
The Deep Staters are not that stupid, but they are that cynical.
American Democrats ARE that stupid to believe that Putin wanted Trump and $2 gas, especially after all the money he gave to Hillary. The whole anti-Trump thing is a coverup for the Clinton-Obama-Biden corruption that they facilitated.
At the same time, people who say "Dr. No" is the best Bond film are anti-Asian. It's "Goldfinger". It's got THE theme song and that scene with P-G in the hay.
ha ha
If you notice, it's Pussy Galore who saves the day in Goldfinger.
Who kept all those soldiers from dying at Fort Knox?
Pussy Galore, that's who!
She fucking saves everybody. James Bond ought to write her a check. For doing his job.
Thunderball is the best Bond. Sharks in the swimming pool, man.
Also, watch out for that transvestite!
007! The transvestite! Look out!
Mike--do you really believe that they really believe that?
Why are there no recent polls on the percentage of Americans who still believe the Russia Collusion narrative or that Trump is an agent of the Kremlin?
Because the media wants to keep the focus on the 2020 election "deniers".
It's true threads most often drift off-topic. But it's preferable to the on-topic, repetitive posts which are simply personal attacks.
And I'm sorry, but Dr. No is not the best Bond film even though Honey Rider may be the best Bond girl.
No biologist was needed to certify her womanhood.
I had a TS/SAP clearance. We receive training every year on handling classified information. Hillary Clinton couldn't be bothered to attend that training. She deliberately spilled (disclosed) classified information on non-secure systems. The effort to clean up a spill requires wiping the computer that the spill occurred on, wiping the back up tapes, and other steps. It's a big deal.
Hillary didn't give a rip about protecting classified information. She was grossly negligent, which is a crime, and doesn't require intent. She was obligated to protect the secrets and she didn't. James Comey and the A.G. (Lorretta Lynch) conspired to obstruct justice on her malfeasance.
More evidence Senators do not read articles published under their signature. In 2016 Time published a piece under Rand's name decrying the government's failure to prosecute candidate Clinton under the Espionage Act for her use of her private server.
No irony. The US was led into both World Wars against the desires of the overwhelming majority of her citizens, by Democrat Presidents.
Not to mention Vietnam.
Blogger Howard said...
The Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss would approve of Bland Paul.
What an odd thing to post or even think.
Honey Rider may be the best Bond girl.
Yeah, totally. I would just have settled down and knocked out some kids with Honey.
"Somebody else save the world. Come on, M. Hire some people. What the fuck, man? I got to save the world all the time? What about 003? He's pretty good. I'm teaching my boy to fish. Fuck off."
It's telling that Warren G. Harding has proven to be the most dutiful President in protecting the Bill of Rights in this respect.
Howard: "The Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss would approve of Bland Paul."
Michael K: "What an odd thing to post or even think."
Don't blame Howard. He can't control what pops up in his Democratical Magic Moron 8-balls.
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