program. he s a source. edward snowden is a source for media outlets to do these publications. mark felt was a source who ultimately brought down president nixon, deep throat, and the reason he did it was not a great reason. it was not internally consistent. it had to do with the fact he felt passed over for jobs. the nixon administration said he, like mr. ellsberg, were bad for national security. we have got to use a better standard than what the government says to us about the leakers it doesn t like while it lets all sorts of other leaks go on. i think that selectivity is a real problem. the idea that we should focus only on mr. snowden and his personality, i think, risks us missing the larger issue. what jumps out to me about this particularly is the fact that he s a guy like snowden that has has damaged our relationships with russia, china. we do not know to what degree. he s made the u.s. seem very hypocritical. when the president meets with the president of china and says,
that s entirely different from the pentagon papers, for example, and daniel ellsburg, where that was a public interest clearly. the other thing that you are drawing a distinction between is an actual prosecution of the journalist. and a certain much warrant with a recitation, this is in response to the privacy proceed taekts of 1908 where in order to order the subpoenas, co-conspirator, aider, abettor, journalists are not exempt from criminal prosecution. the first amendment does have limits. let s say that this is maybe not the case in this particular example but let s say the north korean asset that rosen basically exposed, let s say that person had been killed. you know. let s say that their family had been killed. there is a lineup the which i think you could prosecute that journalist. there is a chilling effect on people like kim, who are exposing national secrets, that really are a detriment to our
some unknown person did that. he s not daniel ellsburg, he s the new rk times. i m shocked that we re saying that there s discussion about a criminal investigation about a publisher, no different than me putting things on my own facebook and website and the new york times and what does it come to in the united states if the people are actually publishing what was classified information are the ones being scrutinized. they don t want the citizens to know something embarrassing. you said that you re very confused, on the one hand, total transparency but not absolute? on the contrary. i said i m not for total tran parn see. i think we would regard that with horror. so there is there is, i think, not a case to be made for total transparency. and the way democracies deal with that is a system of checks and balances. i think we would have no trouble saying of the new york times, were they to publish such a hypothetical data file, something private material from facebook, that this wo
general hold a press conference, the sole purpose to say we re investigating this guy and his group for criminal activity, it s a safe bet the charges will be filed soon and i think they will be. what is so hard about just charging him with receiving stolen documents? because you have to put the pieces together for a criminal case. who actually got these documents? how did they get on to wikileaks on to the website? who physically put them there? what was assange s role with getting was it a thumb drive from point a to point b? all of that may be known to the u.s. government. it s not known to the public. you can t bring a criminal case unless you can actually connect the dots. i can t believe we re having this conversation because assange isn t the guy who got the classified information. some unknown person did that. he s not daniel ellsburg, he s the new york times. i m shocked that we re saying that there s discussion about a criminal investigation about a publisher, no di
one complicating issue here. address the charges against assange in sweden. are they a ruse? are they a front for something else? and even if they are, indeed, something nefarious against him, you are still in essence participating in bailing out a man who has been charged with criminal sexual charges or will be charged under these circumstances. address that. that s the thing. he hasn t been charged. they brought no criminal charges against him. they want to talk to him about this whole thing stinks to the high heavens. i have to tell you. i mean, i wasn t born yesterday, but i ve seen this enough times where governments and corporations go after individuals, geez, i think i was just on your show a couple weeks ago talking about this with my film and the health care industry. they go after people with this kind of lie and smear. daniel elsburg told you last week how they went after him. his guilt or innocence of this.