Sigma Hate Present

[sigma7]

Dammit. First The West Wing's Leo McGarry, John Spencer, dies (he was turning 59 next week). And then we get the choice piece of info that not only has the National Security Agency been freely snooping on American citizens (sans warrant) for the longest time, and not only is the administration perfectly fine with that, but (and here's where it gets actually surprising) the New York Times knew about it for a year and held the story at the administration's request.

Christ, why bother having a newspaper? If you're not printing this, then what else is more important, more worthy of putting ink to paper for? Appalling. Shameful.

Comments

[kitblonde.livejournal.com]

I am so with you on this. And it's not just the bourbon talking.
I respect the shit out of the Times, but if they haven't got the clout, rich as they are, to defy the administration, who does?
And they say we have a liberal media. The glorious idea of the media as the fourth branch of the government attracted me to journalism, and the realization that I was completely wrong about that drove me away. And this is like another nail in the coffin of my childhood dream. (Hence the bourbon. Well, that and other stuff, but it helped. It's like finding out your dad kicked a puppy.)

[jkgriffin.livejournal.com]

That is horrifying. Just wrong on so many levels. Gah. It almost makes me want to go into public interest law so I can sue the crap out of these people. Almost.

[eslyssa.livejournal.com]

John Spencer died? I didn't know that. Wow. That's... I don't know.

And as for the whole eavesdropping thing, well. Glad to live in Australia, I guess. *eyes telephone*

That is, I think.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

The good news is that if we ever talk on the phone, at least we're guaranteed that someone will be listening.

[motteditor.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, I can't believe John Spencer died. What a shame. He was a fine actor.

(And yes, it is kind of sad that I'm reacting more to this, but I heard and ranted about the NSA and Bush earlier.)

[bishop282.livejournal.com]

Of course they held the information. The guys got a book coming out soon. What better way to gin up interest in the book. When is the investigation into the leaking of classified information going to start? As we learned in the outing of non-covert Valerie "Hidden in Plain Sight" Plame case, leaking information is bad. Mark Levin has a good take (http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_12_11_corner-archive.asp#084896) on the matter. He closes with this great line, "I cannot remember the last time, or first time, this newspaper (the Times) reported a leak that was helpful to our war effort. "