Rosen, The AP And Da President

There are laws, specifically the Privacy Protection Act, that give journalists even more protection from prosecution in these cases. The only end run around this law is to accuse the reporter of a crime, and this is exactly what the FBI did.

FBI Agent Reginald Reyes wrote in his May 28, 2010, application for a search warrant that “there is probable cause to believe that the reporter has committed or is committing a violation of [the Espionage Act]as an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator.”

Agent Reyes goes on to say that “Because of the Reporter’s own potential criminal liability in this matter, we believe that requesting the voluntary production of the materials from Reporter would be futile and would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation and of the evidence we seek to obtain by the warrant.”

If that doesn’t make your blood run cold, then you’re not paying attention.

This is the first time in U.S. history that a reporter has been attacked in this way, and the government never planned to tell anyone. Libertarian pundit Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court Judge, may have put it best:

“This is an American reporter, working for the most popular cable news service in the United States, and the Obama administration’s DOJ and FBI stooges saw nothing wrong with calling him a criminal for exercising his first amendment rights.”

Thankfully WaPo reporter Anne Marimow uncovered this mess before the federals could bury it forever. I wonder if they’ll charge her with violation of the Espionage Act as well? It is pretty clear that her story injured the creditability of the president. It wouldn’t be all that big of a leap for the FBI and DOJ, with their ham-fisted idea of justice, to turn that attack into a threat on the United States.

So Rosen must be getting ready to go to court. After all, he has been accused by the FBI of collusion in a major crime. No. The DOJ has come out and said that there is “no plan” to prosecute Rosen. They are only going after Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. So fret not, media! We’ll let you off the hook this time!

What these functionaries of the broken republic don’t seem to realize is that this is actually even worse than just accusing Rosen of treason. This means the federal government lied in order to circumvent the law – and they’re essentially admitting it.