As I write this, Politico reports that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation has made an arrest in the matter of “classified” government documents found circulating on social media after allegedly being posted on an Internet game chat server over a period of weeks or months.

The New York Times reports that the likely arrestee is one Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

Given my past writings on government abuse of the “classification” system, you may be surprised to learn that in this particular instance I support prison time.

Not for Teixeira, though, even if he does turn out to be the person who released the documents.

The people who belong in jail are the people who classified those documents in the first place, and the case looks pretty airtight to me.

At least some of the released documents were market “top secret,” a classification which reflects the claim that their release would result in “grave” damage to the national security of the United States.

The documents were released. Amount of damage to the national security of the United States? Zip. Zero. Nada.

The US hasn’t been bombed. The US hasn’t been invaded. No US ships have been sunk, nor have any US aircraft been shot down, nor have any US troops been put in harm’s way. Not surprising, since the US has never considered its national security threatened enough to merit a declaration of war even once in more than 80 years now.

The documents may be politically embarrassing, but not only is that not a legitimate reason for classifying information, it’s specifically prohibited by law as a reason for classifying information.

Those documents should never have been classified in the first place. And the people who classified them KNEW that. If they were of any importance,  they wouldn’t have been shown to random 21-year-old members of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, especially in such an insecure manner that those personnel could hand-copy and/or photograph them, walk out with them, and share them with a bunch of gamer friends.

While I’m against the whole concept of “classified information” on principle (if you want to keep secrets from taxpayers, give up that taxpayer funding), it’s even worse when  every lieutenant colonel in the armed forces stamps “top secret” on their DoorDash lunch orders, then run around chicken-littleing about “national security” when word gets out. Lock’em up.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

 

On July 25, 2020, libertarian activist Garrett Foster stood his ground: With his wheelchair-bound wife nearby, and his rifle held at “low-ready” position, he told a driver who had run a red light and driven into a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters in Austin Texas, to “move along.”

The driver, Daniel Perry, proceeded to shoot Foster three times with a pistol, killing him, then claimed “self-defense” and protection under the state’s “stand your ground” law.

Police apparently bought Perry’s “self-defense” claim, but a prosecutor didn’t, and neither did the 12 jurors who unanimously convicted Perry of the murder in  early April 2023.

Why? Perhaps it had to do with Perry’s prior social media messaging:

“I might have to kill a few people on my way to work …”

“I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”

“Send [protesters] to Texas we will show them why we say you don’t mess with Texas.”

He even speculated, in a Facebook chat, that he could get away with it by, you guessed it, claiming “self-defense.”

Daniel Perry is no Kyle Rittenhouse, who made a poor decision to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, but was rightly acquitted on charges of murder after defending himself from violent attackers.

Nor is Perry a Michael Drejka, imprisoned for manslaughter in Florida for defending himself from a violent attacker.

Perry’s just a cold-blooded killer who publicly fantasized about murdering protesters, pre-fabricated a bogus “self-defense” claim, went through with his scheme, and couldn’t sell his garbage defense to a jury.

Perry has yet to take any responsibility for his actions, or express remorse, or demonstrate the possibility that he might ever stop posing a clear and present danger to the public.

But, hey, it was a Black Lives Matter rally.

So, naturally, Texas governor Greg Abbott has indicated his intent to pardon the courageous killer of an “antifa terrorist,” decrying the killer’s purely political persecution by a “Soros-backed” prosecutor.

Is Abbott plotting a presidential run? Or jockeying for a cabinet position in a future Republican administration?

Those two possibilities — both instances of “owning the libs to please my base” — seem like the only plausible explanations for his plan to put a known, confessed, convicted killer back on the streets among a law-abiding public whose population that killer has already reduced by one.

If Abbott was a Democratic governor pulling these kind of shenanigans in the name of “criminal justice reform,” Republicans would rightly have his hide.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In early April, Twitter added a “State-Affiliated Media” tag to National Public Radio’s account on the social media platform, putting it in the same league as Russia’s RT, China’s Xinhua, and other government-funded “news” outlets.

Within a few days, under withering criticism from, among others, NPR CEO Jack Lansing (who came to NPR after running other US state-affiliated media such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe), Twitter backed off a bit and changed NPR’s label to “Government Funded.”

What’s the difference? There isn’t one.

As Twitter owner Elon Musk pointed out, it “seems accurate” to class NPR with other “outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.”

Oddly, French (France 24), Canadian (CBC) and British (BBC) state-affiliated media outlets don’t seem to have been caught up in Twitter’s labeling net. NPR makes the same claims to “editorial independence” as those outfits, but those claims are, in each and every case, risible.

NPR was established by an act of Congress. Its member stations all operate under license from the Federal Communications Commission, and receive special tax treatment as “non-profits.”

While NPR no longer receives the majority of its funding directly from government, it hews rigidly to a “mainstream” narrative as set forth by the American political class, and buckles every time its funding is threatened by politicians for coloring outside the lines set by the current ruling party.

He who pays the piper calls the tune, and NPR’s tune ranges from pro-US-regime heavy metal to elevator music versions of the same songs.

RT’s commentators will sometimes “criticize” the Kremlin’s policy line, but only in terms of urging the regime to do what it’s already doing only  faster and more vigorously. NPR reliably “criticizes” the US regime in the same way.

FDR once told a group lobbying him on behalf of a reform they wanted, “you’ve convinced me — now go out and bring pressure on me.”

The mission of state-affiliated media is to “bring pressure” on the US government to do what it’s already doing. Want to know what the American political establishment thinks — and wants you to support? Just tune in to the daily episodes of “Morning Edition” or “All Things Considered.”

If NPR doesn’t want to be state-affiliated media, it should give up that government funding and start exercising real editorial independence.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY