For years, this space has been arguing – railing, really – that the ideological and legal currents unleashed by America’s response to the 9/11 attacks have been leading us down the road to dictatorship: see here, here, here, and here. Back in those halcyon days, circa 2007 and much earlier, it was easy to dismiss such charges as the mental effluvia of the somewhat overwrought libertarian imagination: after all, if we’re headed for an authoritarian order of Orwellian proportions, then where are the Thought Police?
What we didn’t know was that they were lurking in the woodwork all along – spying on us, recording our phone calls, scooping up our emails, and tracking our every move. We didn’t know about the National Security Agency’s data dragnet: we hadn’t heard of PRISM, or any of the other programs that allow government snoops to sniff out dissidents and other "subversives" who might be "linked" to "terrorism."
Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
I take very cold comfort in having been right about this, because, for one, it’s actually much worse than I thought it would be. In the wake of the Snowden revelations, and the government’s reaction, we have an ominous new development in the works, one I never foresaw: the criminalization of journalism.
The Washington Post reported, the other day, on an exchange between FBI Director James Comey and his Republican interlocutor, Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, reproducing the relevant and most striking part in full. The occasion was Tuesday’s session of a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee on "Worldwide Threats," with Rogers questioning Comey on the Snowden documents:
"REP. ROGERS: You – there have been discussions about selling of access to this material to both newspaper outlets and other places. Mr. Comey, to the best of your knowledge, is fencing stolen material – is that a crime?
DIRECTOR COMEY: Yes, it is.
ROGERS: And would be selling the access of classified material that is stolen from the United States government – would that be a crime?
COMEY: It would be. It’s an issue that can be complicated if it involves a news-gathering and news promulgation function, but in general, fencing or selling stolen property is a crime.
ROGERS: So if I’m a newspaper reporter for – fill in the blank – and I sell stolen material, is that legal because I’m a newspaper reporter?
COMEY: Right, if you’re a newspaper report[er] and you’re hocking stolen jewelry, it’s still a crime."
You can see where this is going, but let’s stop for a moment and check Comey’s premises: who has stolen what from whom? This is the real question at the heart of the debate over the Snowden revelations, and as usual the inhabitants of that Bizarro World known as Washington, D.C., have turned reality on its head. It was Snowden who blew the whistle on the real thieves: the NSA and the government officials who presided over the wholesale hijacking of our privacy in brazen violation of the Fourth Amendment. If anyone is "hocking" "stolen property" it is the government, which has contracted out its illegal surveillance programs to private vendors who profit from Washington’s crimes against the American people.
In the alternate universe inhabited by Comey and Rogers, the criminal is the victim, and any witnesses to the crime are denounced, hunted down, and jailed. Those witnesses include not only Snowden but also his alleged "accomplices," i.e. the journalists who exposed the NSA’s crimes to the world. Rogers, an instinctive authoritarian, homes in on the "legal" logic that would permit the arrest of Glenn Greenwald and/or Laura Poitras at the airport should they be so foolish as to re-enter the land of their birth:
"ROGERS: And if I’m hocking stolen classified material that I’m not legally in possession of for personal gain and profit, is that not a crime?
COMEY: I think that’s a harder question because it involves a news-gathering functions – could have First Amendment implications. It’s something that probably would be better answered by the Department of Justice."
Comey doesn’t want to entangle the administration in a debate that would force them to come out of the closet as basically backing Rogers’ argument in principle, but the pro-NSA zealot with deep ties to the military-industrial lobby is far less shy:
"ROGERS: So entering into a commercial enterprise to sell stolen material is acceptable to a legitimate news organization?
COMEY: I’m not sure I’m able to answer that question in the abstract.
ROGERS: It’s something we ought to think about, is it not?
COMEY: Certainly."
Yes, by all means let us think about the question Rogers is raising: now that the government has effectively abolished the Fourth Amendment, shouldn’t they get on with the job of demolishing the First? After all, why not jettison even the pretense of being a liberal democracy and get right down to the real nitty gritty, as we used to say:
"ROGERS: And so if there are accomplices in purveying stolen information, shouldn’t we be concerned about that?
COMEY: We should be concerned about all the facts surrounding the theft of classified information and its promulgation.
ROGERS: Hmm. And interesting that over the – again, the Munich Conference, where we had individuals tell us that in fact there are individuals who are saying to be in possession of this information who are eager to sell this information to other news organizations, would that be a legitimate exercise on behalf of a reporter?
COMEY: That’s a question – now you’re getting from the general to the particular. I don’t want to talk about the case in particular because it’s an active investigation of ours.
ROGERS: It’s an active investigation for accomplices brokering in stolen information?
COMEY: We are looking at the totality of the circumstances around the theft and promulgation."
In any authoritarian regime, reporters who don’t belong to the David Gregory school of journalism are always considered "accomplices": that’s because their adversarial position in relation to the political class, by the standards of today’s Washington, is inherently treasonous. Any journalist who takes his or her job seriously is, in the post-9/11 era, a suspect in a potential crime against the State.
Which brings us to the question of why Greenwald has so far hesitated to return to America from Brazil where he’s been living with his partner. I say so far because Salon is reporting that he’s determined to come back this April to receive the Polk award for journalism.
Rogers’ threat is clearly aimed at Greenwald: yes, that’s what it’s come to – a native born American who dares speak truth to power cannot set foot on US soil without fear of arrest. In a Bizarro World inversion of the cold war era, our dissidents are going to Moscow, where they languish in exile hoping for a better day. And a broad coalition extending from Cass Sunstein to a Republican congressman from Michigan is demanding a revision of the First Amendment that would render it impotent.
What’s next – concentration camps for dissidents? Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia thinks so:
"U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told law students at the University of Hawaii law school Monday that the nation’s highest court was wrong to uphold the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II but that he wouldn’t be surprised if the court issued a similar ruling during a future conflict.
"Scalia was responding to a question about the court’s 1944 decision in Korematsu v. United States, which upheld the convictions of Gordon Hirabayashi and Fred Korematsu for violating an order to report to an internment camp.
“’Well, of course, Korematsu was wrong. And I think we have repudiated in a later case. But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again,’ Scalia told students and faculty during a lunchtime question-and-answer session.
"Scalia cited a Latin expression meaning ‘In times of war, the laws fall silent.’
"’That’s what was going on – the panic about the war and the invasion of the Pacific and whatnot. That’s what happens. It was wrong, but I would not be surprised to see it happen again, in time of war. It’s no justification but it is the reality,’ he said."
Interestingly, Scalia makes the key connection between what’s going on abroad, i.e. our foreign policy of perpetual war, and the state of civil liberties at home, which is more than one can say about many if not most of his conservative admirers.
When I was a wee libertarian lad, we used to have a slogan, the kind you put on stickers and leave in public places: SAVE YOUR CANDLES, THE DARK AGES ARE COMING! Back then, in the 1960s, if anyone had suggested that by 2014 we’d be living in the kind of country where one’s every communication is recorded and stored – the kind where journalists fear to report the truth about what their government is doing, and where the abolition of the First Amendment is being openly considered by elected officials – they would’ve been ridiculed as purveyors of pure speculative fiction. And with no small justification: in retrospect, however, it turns out that old bumper sticker was prescient as hell.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.
Read more by Justin Raimondo
- Free Barrett Brown – February 4th, 2014
- How to Spot a Paranoid Government Bureaucrat – February 2nd, 2014
- Obama, the Reluctant Realist – January 30th, 2014
- It’s Always World War II – January 28th, 2014
- The Progressive Crack-up – January 26th, 2014
The New Dark Age | Omaha Free Press
February 6th, 2014 at 11:01 pm
[…] post The New Dark Age appeared first on The Bat Country […]
oswaldwasaleftist
February 7th, 2014 at 12:22 am
While a great journalist like Glenn Greenwald lives in fear arrest upon returning home to the U.S., we can easily host a group of thumbing suck brats like Pussy Riot and pretend we're taking a stand for "human rights". One of their stunts before they became known as "Pussy Riot" was to engage in public sex at a museum. Of course, every city in the U.S. would be giving such a group the key to the city and take them in as the toast of the town, rather than throwing the book at them in court and turning them into the persona non-gratas known as sex offenders. But engage in juvenile behavior like this, or engage in the kind of antics the Ukrainian brats Femen are up to, and you're a "human rights" hero in the West.
Mike
February 7th, 2014 at 12:36 am
And yet, we have morons even here who STILL want Big Government. Amazing how blind people can be, eh?
The New Dark AgeNot Just The News | Not Just The News
February 7th, 2014 at 2:05 am
[…] Antiwar.com Original 0 likesIn WarDark […]
Generalissimo X
February 7th, 2014 at 2:13 am
this whole level of fascist insanity begins with 911 and every thing that has preceded it is clear evidence that the event was the biggest false flag con job in human history. the last 12+ years have seen the elite "legally" eviscerate the constitution. the entire rise of the authoritarian police state has been put in place like a game of dominoes and pretty soon they are going to start to fall. the provisions in the patriot act, the ndaa the unitary executive, the allowing of systematic torture…these have all been legalized to be performed on the american citizenry. these "laws" were always meant for us. to deny any of this is willful ignorance or pure, unadulterated stupidity at this point. the road the elites have placed us on is in no way accidental,,,
the nsa gathering all the information against us all isn't against the law..but a citizen knowing and informing others about it is!?! that is tyranny pure and simple.
Silvermaven
February 7th, 2014 at 2:49 am
Not much has changed since the Dark Ages….Edward the First of England placed a tax on licorice imports in the year 1305 to finance the repair of the London Bridge because the people used its medicine properties to treat their Syphilis among the worst of their infections. Sticking it to the people thru their hearts and minds just like they do today in denying the masses treatment for the Real cause of AIDS they gave us all in vaccines for decades making YOU PAY for the hundreds of syndromes, psych, and cancers the infections they gave us caused. What happened when they couldn't afford their medicnes? CHEERS everyone…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOno_2m_8LY
no jojo
February 7th, 2014 at 6:22 am
Term "response" should be replaced with involvement : " that the ideological and legal currents unleashed by America’s {INVOLVEMENT} to the 9/11 attacks have been leading us down the road to dictatorship"
Macroman
February 7th, 2014 at 6:26 am
Nice job, Justin, calling out the real criminals (and using "effluvia").
RazorsanFiles
February 7th, 2014 at 7:48 am
You can put me on this list too…. The no accident but planned list… Not so much planned as copied. A disputed election, leader appointed against the voters choice. Big notorious attack on the state! Pfoof, A new draconian law stripping citizens of every right in practise and in execution: Due process denied: Back to 1200s pre-Magna Carta ……. Then the prison camps..!! Worldwide!! Meanwhile, two wars….VAST power consolidation… TSA by hyper dual citizens… Austria last time, Israel this time…. Just another of those nine / 11 co incidences…??? MMMMMM Yeah…. Sure……….!!! Big news this morning!! Hyper Neocon Victoria Nuland caught on the phone arranging another of those "acts" as indentified by Rove…
Listening to Hyper-Neocon Victoria Neuland this morning werking her/our magic to dismember yet another country..
["The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."]
He could have said, "We create political facts on the ground" [Zero!!!!!!!] They're proud of it……
Connect the dots, our slide, no more like a plunge….. into the abyss of totalitarian darkness was planned and from it's initiating "Nu-pearl Harbor event, through all the aforementioned "acts" to the mop up "O" crew looking "forward" today…. It's only hidden from those incapable of thinking the unthinkable.
RazorsanFiles
February 7th, 2014 at 8:03 am
Nuland is the daughter of Yale bioethics and medicine professor Sherwin B. Nuland, the family's original surname being Nudelman. She graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall in 1979 and has a B.A. from Brown University. Nuland is married to historian Robert Kagan, with whom she has two children.
Her HUSBAND: (You can't make this stuff up) Robert Kagan is co-founder of the PROJECT for the New American Century… and it's New Pearl Harbor wishlist…!!!!!!!!!
Wiki: policy commentator at the Brookings Institution. He was a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century.[1][2] More recently, his book The World America Made has been publicly endorsed by US President Barack Obama, and its theme was referenced in his 2012 State of the Union Address.[3]
Do some research yourself on these people…….. See what you can find….
RICinOR
February 7th, 2014 at 9:22 am
An excellent, albeit disturbing, article Mr. Raimondo. Hope we're still able to read your articles this time next year!
muggles
February 7th, 2014 at 9:48 am
There is something about Greenwald's planned return to the US which sparked a thought. The old leftist saying "heighten the contradiction!" came to mind. This refers to a scenario where (fascist) authorities are pursuing unpopular repressions while claiming to be favoring human rights or whatever.
Greenwald's return will be exactly that type of "contradiction." If the fascists in the US govt. harass or arrest him this will be one of these (in)famous contradictions. Let the smiling face of Obama and his flunkies explain why they are arresting journalists for ThoughtCrimes. Yes indeed.
And if he comes back safely, the barking dogs of fascism will be forced to merely growl…
RazorsanFiles
February 7th, 2014 at 10:01 am
What happened to my comment?
ANU News.net The New Dark Age
February 7th, 2014 at 12:17 pm
[…] For years, this space has been arguing – railing, really – that the ideological and legal currents unleashed by America’s response to the 9/11 attacks have been leading us down the road to dictatorship: see here, here, here, and here. Back in those halcyon days, circa 2007 and much earlier, it was easy to dismiss such charges as the mental effluvia of the somewhat overwrought libertarian imagination: after all, if we’re headed for an authoritarian order of Orwellian proportions, then where are the Thought Police? What we didn’t know was that they were lurking in the woodwork all along – spying on us, recording our phone calls, scooping up our emails, and tracking our every move. We didn’t know about the National Security Agency’s data dragnet: we hadn’t heard of PRISM, or any of the other programs that allow government snoops to sniff out dissidents and other “subversives” who might be “linked” to “terrorism.” Don’t say we didn’t warn you. I take very cold comfort in having been right about this, because, for one, it’s actually much worse than I thought it would be. In the wake of the Snowden revelations, and the government’s reaction, we have an ominous new development in the works, one I never foresaw: the criminalization of journalism. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2014/02/06/the-new-dark-age/ […]
rosemerry
February 7th, 2014 at 2:01 pm
Exactly. All the anti-gay, antiabortion, antidrug…….. baloney in the USA when such "freedom" heroines perform sacrilegious acts in churches and Putin is blamed for reacting.
Ira Epstein
February 7th, 2014 at 3:02 pm
I think the number one threat to the existence of Antiwar.com is not that it will fail to raise enough money during its quartly fundraisers, but that the USG will shut it down. I am aware of the fact that there are very clever computer people out there who could probably get around such restrictions. But what would be the use if all the journalist and the best editorial writers are rotting away in some government gulag? I would be very concerned about a Free Justin Raimondo movement if I were you.
Kratoklastes
February 7th, 2014 at 4:23 pm
I would drop the 'Big' from that sentence, Mike.
"And yet, we have morons even here who STILL want
BigGovernment. Amazing how blind people can be, eh?"That seems about right – because if you permit any government, it will, eventually and with absolute certainty, be captured by sociopathic megalomaniacs… whereupon it will overstep its bounds, break any chains that are thought to bind it, and grow until it can no longer be supported by the productive sector of the society on which it parasitises.
cmichaelg
February 7th, 2014 at 10:17 pm
What passes here for a public discussion about illegal NSA snooping is distorted almost beyond recognition by the total absence of any mention of Israeli spying on the USA. It is not coincidental that among the documents Snowden leaked, which The Guardian has subsequently published, but which no one seems to want to discuss, are those about Israel's role in the NSA's spying on Americans, and one about Games and Virtual Environments (GVEs), which Israeli spook shops developed and are exploiting with criminal abandon as psy-ops tools. How many school shootings and gun massacres do a new Dark Age make, you cowardly twits?