Time to Amend the First Amendment!

I have advocated an “Official Secrets Act” for the United States for a very long time now. I would recommend an Act modeled after the “British Official Secrets Act”.

The mainstream media is so abusing their right of “freedom of the press” that the right itself is in danger of being withdrawn. Truth be told, not many of us would be terribly upset with a number of limitations on the press.

As I have said, I would support an “Official Secrets Act” similar to that of Great Britain. I think the American Media has shown itself to be unworthy of our trust and their recent rush to publish materials harmful to the US efforts to secure the country certainly raise questions concerning the MSM’s loyalty to the US.

When the press goes into competition with each other to see which of them can release the most secrets of our government, when that government is in a contest to prevent the deaths of thousands of Americans, then that is abuse of the Constitutional Right to Freedom of the Press.

How important was it for you, and I, to know that the wiretapping, of suspected terrorist, was being practiced by the government to gather valuable information on those suspected of planning to do harm to America. Can you remember being told when the Clinton Administration, the Carter Administration, and the Reagan Administration did the same thing? Why is it important now, and not then?

How important was it for you and I to know that the US government had set up radioactivity scanners, on public grounds, near Islamic Mosques in the US to help protect us against a “Dirty Bomb”?

Now that the terrorists know this, now that they have this information, which OUR MSM supplied them, they will certainly change their mode of communication and, you can bet your sweet bippy, they will not store any radioactive material in a Mosque!

I’m not even going to repeat the most recent activity of the MSM in disseminating secret material which was VERY sensitive and will hurt the US’s war effort against the terrorists worldwide.

An Official Secrets Act, if drawn up properly, would put the screws to the MSM when they attempted to, or were successful in, printing, or broadcasting, information such as that contained in the stories I mentioned above.

The abuse of the First Amendment by the MSM, I believe, has caused the war in Iraq to last longer than it should have, cost more US lives than was necessary, and is having an adverse effect upon the US government’s attempt to secure the United States against the terrorists, who are determined to kill as many Americans… as often as they can.

The MSM must be reined-in one way… or the other! An official secrets act would do it. It would also give us a tool, other than the Federal Sedition Laws, to prosecute Government employees who “leak” this information to the MSM.

Below is a synopsis, if you will, of the British Official Secrets Act. I ask you to read through it and pay close attention to Section 5 of the 1989 Act.

We have to secure the US against the Press. I never thought I would hear myself say those words. But we can no longer trust a Press, which is not concerned for the security of the American people. I do not believe the framers of the First Amendment would even blink at curbing the freedom of today’s MSM. When that First Amendment was drafted... I do not believe a single framer would have suspected, for one second, that the press would ever stoop so low as to put their very own country, and more importantly, the men, women, and children of their country in danger.

That was then. This is now. There was honor then. Today you will find honor in the dictionary and scarcely anywhere else.

Again, as you read through the abbreviated British Official Secrets act below, pay careful attention to section five, which is hi-lighted in red..
******************************
Official Secrets Act
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Official secrets act)
Jump to: navigation, search

The Official Secrets Act is any of several Acts of the United Kingdom Parliament for the protection of official information, mainly related to national security. The latest revision is Official Secrets Act 1989 (1989 chapter 6), which removed the public interest defence by repealing section 2 of Official Secrets Act 1911.
People working with sensitive information are commonly required to sign a statement to the effect that they agree to abide by the restrictions of the Official Secrets Act. This is popularly referred to as "signing the Official Secrets Act". Signing this has no effect on which actions are legal; it is intended more as a reminder to the person that they are under such obligations. To this end, it is common to sign this statement both before and after a period of employment that involves access to secrets

Terms of the 1989 Act
The act applies in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, and in overseas crown territories and colonies. Unusually, the terms of the act apply to affected persons (who are generally employees of the British government) wherever they are in the world.
Section 1 - disclosure of security and intelligence information. It applies only to members of the security and intelligence services, and to others who work with security and intelligence information (and who have been informed that they are affected by section 1).
Section 2 - disclosure of defense information. This section applies only to crown servants and government contractors (defined in section 12)
Section 3 - disclosure of information concerning international relations. This section applies only to crown servants and government contractors.
Section 4 - disclosure of law enforcement information which would assist a criminal or the commission of a crime. This section applies only to crown servants and government contractors.
Section 5 - further disclosure or publication of information obtained in contravention of other sections of the act. It allows, for example, the prosecution of newspapers or journalists who publish secret information leaked to them by a crown servant in contravention of section 3. This section applies to everyone, regardless of whether they are a government employee, or whether they have signed the act.
Section 6 - secret information belonging to foreign governments or international organisations. This section is intended to protect secrets shared by foreign governments and those of international organisations such as NATO and Interpol.
Section 7 - defines the circumstances under which a disclosure of secret information is officially published. It is not a crime to disclose information that has been officially published according to the mechanism described in this section.
Section 8 - makes it a crime for a crown servant or government contractor to retain information beyond their official need for it, and obligates them to properly protect secret information from accidential disclosure.
Section 9 - limits the circumstances under which a prosecution under the act may take place. Prosecutions under section 4 require the permission of the Director of Public Prosecutions, or his equivalent in Northern Ireland. Prosecutions under other sections require the permission of the Attorney General or his equivalent in Northern Ireland.
Section 10 - sets the penalties for contravening the act. Persons convicted under sections 4,5, and 8 are subject to six months in prison and a fine; persons convicted under other sections are subject to two years imprisonment and a fine.
Section 11 - amends existing police legislation, making contraventions of this act arrestable offences and allowing for the issuance of search warrants.
Section 12 - defines who is a crown servant and government contractor. This includes civil servants, members of the government, members of the armed forces and their reserve equivalents (including the Territorial Army), police officers, and employees and contract employees of government departments and agencies defined by the Home Secretary.
Section 15 - makes it a crime for British citizens and crown servants to disclose information abroad which would be illegal for them to do so in the UK. This is intended to cover espionage (where someone travels to a foreign country and discloses secret information to a foreign power) and cases where someone travels to a foreign country and discloses secret information, perhaps to a newspaper. The terms of this section do not apply to disclosures covered by sections 4,5, and 8.
Sections (12,13,14, and 16) are present in the act for technical reasons.
In order for a crime to be committed, the following conditions must apply:
the disclosure must not be by means permitted in section 7
the person making the disclosure must know, or should know, that their disclosure is unauthorised
the disclosure must cause harm to the UK or its interests, or it could reasonably be believed that harm could occur, and
the person making the disclosure must know, or should know, that such harm could occur
The sections pertaining to crown servants, intelligence officers, and government contractors apply only to information obtained by that person in the course of their official duties; these sections do not apply if the information was obtained by other means (although section 5 would apply).
It is not a defence under the act that the disclosure is in the national or public interest.
**************************

I will be suggesting a constitutional amendment to my Congresspersons and Senators to get a handle on the Press in the US.

We must secure the country and if we have to curb the freedom of a press, which consistently abuses that freedom, then so be it.

Longstreet