WP: CIA Article Sidebar: A Story of Deja Vu (Dana Priest, WP under attack)

[DeepModem Mom]

CIA Article Sidebar: A Story of Deja Vu
Some Critics See a Plame Parallel

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 14, 2005; Page C01

Dana Priest, and her newspaper, are being hit from both sides.

Some conservatives are furious over her Washington Post story this month disclosing that the CIA has been hiding and interrogating terror suspects at secret prisons in Eastern Europe. And some liberals are angry that The Post agreed to a request by senior U.S. officials not to name the countries involved.

"We are being accused of being in the pocket of the administration," Priest says. "One student called me up from a Virginia university to tell me they were burning the paper at a protest, because we're complicit in torture."

With the House intelligence committee launching an investigation into the leak of classified information and the CIA referring the matter to the Justice Department, the controversy could mushroom into another Valerie Plame fracas. If prosecutors get involved, Priest could face the same dilemma that confronted Time's Matt Cooper and former New York Times reporter Judith Miller: whether to reveal confidential sources under threat of imprisonment....

***

Leonard Downie, the Post's executive editor, says: "There was a lot of debate about every aspect of the story to make sure we were balancing legitimate national security concerns with informing our readers about important things that were being done in their name by the government. There were a number of discussions with senior U.S. officials, and we had a number of discussions in the office over several days with Dana and her editors."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/13/AR2005111301297.html

[jsamuel]

1. the WP shouldn't even be in this situation, we shouldn't be torturing

[Presstitutes]

2. Just think of the sorry state of the U.S. media

a half-decade into Bush's reign.

Much more here: http://www.presstitutes.com/

[grasswire]

3. Downie....what a putz

When readers protested Susan Schmidt's stenography for Kenneth Starr, Downie got all pissy with them. He'd better stand up for Dana Priest.

[Toots]

4. It is not the same dilemma as Miller faced.

Miller was protecting a person committing treason and breaking laws while this sounds like a person who wishes to protect someone I would consider a whistleblower which should have protection. A person exposing laws being broken should not be classified the same as a person breaking laws and spreading treason. This is the kind of journalism that needs to be challenged.

[ninkasi]

5. We agree, Toots

As much as conservatives would love to compare the treason enabled by Ms. Miller to the exposing of illegal and immoral activities by Ms. Priest, the situations are different. Judith Miller remained silent while a vicious smear attack designed to expose an undercover CIA agent was being waged, in order to make an example of her husband. Dana Priest is exposing a shocking, immoral, policy of this administrations to disregard treaties and human decency, on the whim of G. W. Bush.

[ItsThePeopleStupid]

6. the difference is the value to the public

Torture by our government is something we should know about.

The name of a CIA operative has no value whatsoever to the public. It also clearly is under the heading of the "sources and methods" that Bushco used to talk about so much when trying to justify their obsessive secrecy. Haven't heard that term lately.

You don't even have to get into motive.