Whatever Happened to Treason=Hanging?

It has started.

On December 15th, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times wrote that the President had ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on communications between suspected terrorists abroad and whomever they were communicating with in the United States without a warrant.  There is a lot of expert analysis on the web debating the legality of the President's order, although virtually none appeared in the original Times piece.  Most of the analysis indicates that the President acted properly, at least as far as precedent and court decisions are concerned.

Aside from the political fallout of the illegal leak(s) and subsequent publishing of this story by The New York Times, the real world impact is now beginning to become evident.  Risen and Lichtblau reported in today's Times that defense lawyers for several people convicted of various terrorist related offenses are planning on filing motions and lawsuits to challenge their convictions.  These filings are based on the assumption that the individuals may have been victims of illegal wiretapping.  I am sure the ACLU will not be very far behind these lawyers, if they are not already involved.  Jonathan Turley is representing one of these individuals. 

Didn't we use to hang people who committed treason against the United States?  Now, courtesy of the NSA story leakers and the Times, convicted Brooklyn Bridge plotter Iyman Faris (who pled guilty by the way) and his lawyers are filing motions to see if they can get his conviction overturned.

This is a great example of why Senator Kerry's "this should be a law enforcement matter" was an idiotic position.  This is a "war against America matter."  When the United States has evidence that someone, including American citizens, collaborated with the enemy, that person should be designated an enemy combatant, tried by a military tribunal, and punished accordingly. 

One last note on today's Times article.  In the last paragraph, Risen and Lichtblau allege that: 

"some Justice Department prosecutors, speaking on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified, said they were concerned that the agency's wiretaps without warrants could create problems for the department in terrorism prosecutions both past and future."

Then they attempt to back this allegation up with this unattributed quote:

"If I'm a defense attorney," one prosecutor said, "the first thing I'm going to say in court is, 'This was an illegal wiretap.' "

This is a non sequitur.  It's not the "wiretaps without warrants" that creates the problem that "some Justice Department prosecutors" are worried about.  It's the illegal intelligence leaks.  In addition to tipping off our enemy, the leaks that Risen and Lichtblau write about will no doubt make every Justice Department prosecutor's job more difficult in the effort to convict these terrorists.

Comments

[Timmer ~ Righting America]

Robert -

You are so RIGHT! This IS treason, and it looks like the focus is not at all on who this might be. Remind you of anything? How about the supposed secret bases that were leaked? Has anyone been made to answer for that one?

The liberal outrage decrying the supposed outing of "Covert Agent" Velerie Plame by administration officials, even if true, would be nothing next to this blatant sell-out of our National Security. How can there be such an uproar when the President has taken these measures to do his job?

Great post!