The WaPo supports the First Amendment

i wish EVERYBODY would just wake the f*** up and realize that the bush cabal consists of criminals... i realize that more and more people are snapping to that fact every day, but still not a critical mass, and not yet enough outrage to make something happen...

No administration likes leaks. But not since the Nixon administration has the government so aggressively sought to crack down -- not just on leakers, but on reporters and others who obtain leaked material. In the latest manifestation of its disregard for First Amendment principles, the administration has used -- misused, to be more precise -- a grand jury subpoena to retrieve "any and all copies" of a document, marked "secret," obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU's request that a federal judge quash the subpoena should be granted.

The grand jury is an important tool for prosecutors to investigate wrongdoing -- not a vacuum cleaner for material the government wishes hadn't gotten out. The government is seeking to abuse the grand jury process to do an end run around the constitutional prohibition against prior restraint enshrined in the Pentagon Papers case. In that 1971 ruling, the government wanted to stop the New York Times and The Post from publishing classified documents about the Vietnam War; the Supreme Court said no. What if the government, instead of suing to block publication, had simply issued a grand jury subpoena demanding that the newspapers return the Pentagon Papers? If the ACLU, which advocates and litigates on issues of public policy, can be forced to comply with such a subpoena, news organizations would be similarly at risk.

listen, wapo... we are ALL at risk - big-time...

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