Too Late

[As] Erik Loomis points out, the Espionage Act is an appalling artifact of an equally appalling age. In his exemplary new history of the FBI, Tim Weiner demonstrates how the Espionage Act was the reason why J. Edgar Hoover first came to power, which ought to be sin enough against democracy for any single law. Second, whistleblowers are not spies. Spies are spies. Somebody who tells a reporter that something's gone badly wrong at the Pentagon, or who tries to bring attention to crimes that may or may not be being committed in the name of everyone else in the country, is not a spy. To treat them as such, and to use an antiquated meat-ax like the Espionage Act to do it, is to take yourself and your administration down a long road that ends with Cubans hiding under desks in the Watergate office complex. I have argued that I knew when I voted for this guy the last time that I wasn't voting for FDR. However, I wasn't voting for Nixon, either. Knock this off, Mr. President. It leads nowhere but to a bad place.

  Charles Pierce

Already there, Charles.