This is disturbing: 17 journalists from first tier publications such as Der Spiegel, Die Zeit and Die Welt are under investigation for publishing classified information that had been leaked by a parliamentary committee. What they were exposing were the crimes of the Bush Administration and possible German involvement or support in those crimes. This from the International Herald Tribune:
"The parliamentary committee is investigating the German government's possible complicity in the cases of CIA rendition flights that had layovers in Germany as well as the German secret service's activities in Baghdad during the U.S. invasion in 2003
The committee is also looking into the disputed kidnapping of Khalid el-Masri and the years-long detention of Murat Kurnaz.
El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, says that he was seized in Macedonia on Dec. 31, 2003, and taken by CIA agents to Afghanistan, where he was allegedly abused before being released in Albania in May 2004.
Kurnaz, who was born in Bremen, Germany, but has Turkish citizenship, was detained in Pakistan in 2001, turned over to U.S. authorities and held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay as a terror suspect until his release in 2006.
Opposition politicians had asked for the parliamentary committee to probe whether the German government looked the other way over practices such as the reported abduction. Some have accused German officials of delaying Kurnaz' release from Guantanamo."
Of course, the true target is not the journalists themselves: they are being used to get to the members of the Bundestag who actually leaked the material. TAZ reporter Jens König is one the reporters under investigation. Today the TAZ reports that the leaked material was a huge embarassment to the former governing coalition in Berlin - especially to the SPD and the current foreign minister Frank Steinmeier:
Manche Veröffentlichungen aus den Akten waren für die Regierung peinlich. Klar wurde: Sie wollte Kurnaz nicht helfen, sondern alles tat, um seine Rückkehr nach Hause zu verhindern. Aber nicht jede Weitergabe geheimer Akten diente der Aufdeckung von Skandalen. "Es sind vor allem vonseiten der SPD-Fraktion Interna an die Presse gegeben worden, damit das Verhalten von Außenminister Steinmeier in einem besseren Licht erscheinen soll", sagt etwa Max Stadler, FDP-Mitglied im Ausschuss.
The journalists should be commended for doing their jobs and for documenting a lawless period in US foreign policy. I only wish the US press corps would show such professionalism. With a few exceptions, it has functioned as an enabling mouthpiece for President Bush and his illegal, destructive policies
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