Kepler's quest for an Earth-like planet orbiting a sun-like star has been put on hold, NASA said, after the spacecraft sensed it was facing in the wrong direction and put itself in 'safe mode.'
By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / May 15, 2013
This file artist's rendering shows the Kepler space telescope. NASA scientists are attempting to repair the spacecraft after it apparently lost its long-distance planet-hunting abilities. Kepler has been collecting data for 4 years, scientists hope it will be able to continue to do so.
AP Photo/NASA, File
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The planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft?s dramatic, some would say romantic, quest for an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting a star in its habitable zone has suddenly been put on hold, NASA officials said Tuesday, while engineers try to figure out what caused the craft to lose its ability to point itself at its distant targets.
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The spacecraft is essentially hibernating, NASA said at a hastily called briefing late Wednesday afternoon, having put itself into "safe mode" on Sunday after sensing it was pointing in the wrong direction.
Controllers discovered the glitch Tuesday during their twice-a-week touch-base with the craft, currently some 40 million miles away in an Earth-like orbit around the sun.
When the craft is in safe mode, thrusters control its orientation, rather than the fast-spinning ?reaction wheels? that normally provide stability. The craft uses these wheels to maintain the exquisite pointing precision needed to relentlessly stare at stars long enough to detect the telltale dimming imposed by a planet as its orbit carries it in front of the star.
As controllers tried to restart the craft's reaction wheels Tuesday, one of the wheels woke up, then balked. This left the craft with two functioning wheels. It needs three to resume observing the patch of sky that for four years it has scanned for Earth-like planets in Earth-like orbits around sun-like stars.
While the malfunction is serious, NASA officials were not ready Wednesday to declare the mission over.
"The loss of the reaction wheel is not good news," said Charles Sobeck, Kepler's deputy project manager at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.
The goal now is to place the craft in an operating mode that reduces the use of its thrusters in order to preserve fuel and "take the time to figure out what to do next," he said.
Kepler was launched in March 2009 as a kind of planetary census taker. The mission's aim is to observe the same 170,000 stars in a hunt for rocky planets orbiting in their stars' habitable zones ? roughly defined as a distance that leaves a planet's surface not too hot or not too cold, but just right for liquid water to persist on its surface. Liquid water is a key prerequisite for organic life.
To date, Kepler has found Earth-mass planets. And it has found larger, super-Earths orbiting in their star's habitable zones. The Kepler team has yet to uncover its ultimate planets. But after bagging more than 2,700 planet-candidates so far, finding the first "just right" extra-solar planet isn't far off, says William Borucki, the mission's lead scientist.
"I'm absolutely delighted that we've got all this data," he said at the briefing. "The mission was designed for four years. It operated four years. It gave us excellent data for four years. On the other hand, I would have been even happier if it continues another four years."
Actor Johnny Depp immortalized in ancient fossil findPublic release date: 16-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Colin Smith cd.smith@imperial.ac.uk 44-020-759-46712 Imperial College London
Johnny Depp immortalized
A scientist has discovered an ancient extinct creature with 'scissor hand-like' claws in fossil records and has named it in honour of his favourite movie star.
The 505 million year old fossil called Kooteninchela deppi (pronounced Koo-ten-ee-che-la depp-eye), which is a distant ancestor of lobsters and scorpions, was named after the actor Johnny Depp for his starring role as Edward Scissorhands - a movie about an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands.
Kooteninchela deppi is helping researchers to piece together more information about life on Earth during the Cambrian period when nearly all modern animal types emerged.
David Legg, who carried out the research as part of his PhD in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says:
"When I first saw the pair of isolated claws in the fossil records of this species I could not help but think of Edward Scissorhands. Even the genus name, Kootenichela, includes the reference to this film as 'chela' is Latin for claws or scissors. In truth, I am also a bit of a Depp fan and so what better way to honour the man than to immortalise him as an ancient creature that once roamed the sea?"
Kooteninchela deppi lived in very shallow seas, similar to modern coastal environments, off the cost of British Columbia in Canada, which was situated much closer to the equator 500 million years ago. The sea temperature would have been much hotter than it is today and although coral reefs had not yet been established, Kooteninchela deppi would have lived in a similar environment consisting of sponges.
The researcher believes that Kooteninchela deppi would have been a hunter or scavenger. Its large Edward Scissorhands-like claws with their elongated spines may have been used to capture prey, or they could have helped it to probe the sea floor looking for sea creatures hiding in sediment.
Kooteninchela deppi was approximately four centimetres long with an elongated trunk for a body and millipede-like legs, which it used to scuttle along the sea floor with the occasional short swim.
It also had large eyes composed of many lenses like the compound eyes of a fly. They were positioned on top of movable stalks called peduncles to help it more easily search for food and look out for predators.
The researcher discovered that Kooteninchela deppi belongs to a group known as the 'great-appendage' arthropods, or megacheirans, which refers to the enlarged pincer-like frontal claws that they share. The 'great-appendage' arthropods are an early relation of arthropods, which includes spiders, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, insects and crabs.
David Legg adds: "Just imagine it: the prawns covered in mayonnaise in your sandwich, the spider climbing up your wall and even the fly that has been banging into your window and annoyingly flying into your face are all descendants of Kooteninchela deppi. Current estimates indicate that there are more than one million known insects and potentially 10 million more yet to be categorised, which potentially means that Kooteninchela Deppi has a huge family tree."
In the future, David Legg intends to further his research and study fossilised creatures from the Ordovician, the geological period that saw the largest increase in diversity of species on the planet. He hopes to understand why this happened in order to learn more about the current diversity of species on Earth.
###
The research was published in the Journal of Palaeontology 2 May 2013.
For more information contact:
Colin Smith
Senior Research Media Officer - Faculty of Engineering
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 6712
Email: cd.smith@imperial.ac.uk
Notes to editors
1, DOWNLOAD AN ARTISTS IMPRESSION OF Kooteninchela Deppi: https://fileexchange.imperial.ac.uk/files/790a31fa04/Kootenichela%20reconstruction.jpg
DOWNLOAD IMAGE OF FOSSIL RECORD:
https://fileexchange.imperial.ac.uk/files/7346879b17/Kootenichela%20(GAs).jpg
2. "Multi-segmented arthropods from the middle Cambrian of British Columbia (Canada)" Journal of Journal of Palaeontology 2 May 2013 David Legg Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London
DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE PAPER: https://fileexchange.imperial.ac.uk/files/5d12387daf7/Legg_2013_Multi-segmented%20arthropods.pdf
3. About Imperial College London
Consistently rated amongst the world's best universities, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 14,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality. Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and business, delivering practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.
Since its foundation in 1907, Imperial's contributions to society have included the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of research for the benefit of all continues today, with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to improve global health, tackle climate change, develop sustainable sources of energy and address security challenges.
In 2007, Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust formed the UK's first Academic Health Science Centre. This unique partnership aims to improve the quality of life of patients and populations by taking new discoveries and translating them into new therapies as quickly as possible.
Website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Actor Johnny Depp immortalized in ancient fossil findPublic release date: 16-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Colin Smith cd.smith@imperial.ac.uk 44-020-759-46712 Imperial College London
Johnny Depp immortalized
A scientist has discovered an ancient extinct creature with 'scissor hand-like' claws in fossil records and has named it in honour of his favourite movie star.
The 505 million year old fossil called Kooteninchela deppi (pronounced Koo-ten-ee-che-la depp-eye), which is a distant ancestor of lobsters and scorpions, was named after the actor Johnny Depp for his starring role as Edward Scissorhands - a movie about an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands.
Kooteninchela deppi is helping researchers to piece together more information about life on Earth during the Cambrian period when nearly all modern animal types emerged.
David Legg, who carried out the research as part of his PhD in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says:
"When I first saw the pair of isolated claws in the fossil records of this species I could not help but think of Edward Scissorhands. Even the genus name, Kootenichela, includes the reference to this film as 'chela' is Latin for claws or scissors. In truth, I am also a bit of a Depp fan and so what better way to honour the man than to immortalise him as an ancient creature that once roamed the sea?"
Kooteninchela deppi lived in very shallow seas, similar to modern coastal environments, off the cost of British Columbia in Canada, which was situated much closer to the equator 500 million years ago. The sea temperature would have been much hotter than it is today and although coral reefs had not yet been established, Kooteninchela deppi would have lived in a similar environment consisting of sponges.
The researcher believes that Kooteninchela deppi would have been a hunter or scavenger. Its large Edward Scissorhands-like claws with their elongated spines may have been used to capture prey, or they could have helped it to probe the sea floor looking for sea creatures hiding in sediment.
Kooteninchela deppi was approximately four centimetres long with an elongated trunk for a body and millipede-like legs, which it used to scuttle along the sea floor with the occasional short swim.
It also had large eyes composed of many lenses like the compound eyes of a fly. They were positioned on top of movable stalks called peduncles to help it more easily search for food and look out for predators.
The researcher discovered that Kooteninchela deppi belongs to a group known as the 'great-appendage' arthropods, or megacheirans, which refers to the enlarged pincer-like frontal claws that they share. The 'great-appendage' arthropods are an early relation of arthropods, which includes spiders, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, insects and crabs.
David Legg adds: "Just imagine it: the prawns covered in mayonnaise in your sandwich, the spider climbing up your wall and even the fly that has been banging into your window and annoyingly flying into your face are all descendants of Kooteninchela deppi. Current estimates indicate that there are more than one million known insects and potentially 10 million more yet to be categorised, which potentially means that Kooteninchela Deppi has a huge family tree."
In the future, David Legg intends to further his research and study fossilised creatures from the Ordovician, the geological period that saw the largest increase in diversity of species on the planet. He hopes to understand why this happened in order to learn more about the current diversity of species on Earth.
###
The research was published in the Journal of Palaeontology 2 May 2013.
For more information contact:
Colin Smith
Senior Research Media Officer - Faculty of Engineering
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 6712
Email: cd.smith@imperial.ac.uk
Notes to editors
1, DOWNLOAD AN ARTISTS IMPRESSION OF Kooteninchela Deppi: https://fileexchange.imperial.ac.uk/files/790a31fa04/Kootenichela%20reconstruction.jpg
DOWNLOAD IMAGE OF FOSSIL RECORD:
https://fileexchange.imperial.ac.uk/files/7346879b17/Kootenichela%20(GAs).jpg
2. "Multi-segmented arthropods from the middle Cambrian of British Columbia (Canada)" Journal of Journal of Palaeontology 2 May 2013 David Legg Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London
DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE PAPER: https://fileexchange.imperial.ac.uk/files/5d12387daf7/Legg_2013_Multi-segmented%20arthropods.pdf
3. About Imperial College London
Consistently rated amongst the world's best universities, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 14,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality. Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and business, delivering practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.
Since its foundation in 1907, Imperial's contributions to society have included the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of research for the benefit of all continues today, with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to improve global health, tackle climate change, develop sustainable sources of energy and address security challenges.
In 2007, Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust formed the UK's first Academic Health Science Centre. This unique partnership aims to improve the quality of life of patients and populations by taking new discoveries and translating them into new therapies as quickly as possible.
Website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
CANNES, France (AP) ? Associated Press journalists open their notebooks at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival:
___
BRAFF NOT JUST DEPENDING ON KICKSTARTER
Zach Braff isn't just counting on the $2.7 million he raised on the crowd-funding platform Kickstarter to make his follow-up movie to "Garden State." Worldwide Entertainment has stepped in at Cannes as a financier for that film, "Wish I Was Here."
It's not uncommon for a film to find additional foreign investors at Cannes, but Braff has come under considerable criticism for relying on fans to bankroll his second directorial effort.
In one of the most high-profile Kickstarter campaigns, the "Scrubs" actor lobbied his fans to contribute money. The film's 38,000-plus backers earn various levels of rewards, from a copy of the script to a part in the film.
On his Kickstarter page, Braff denied that he was doing anything to undermine the spirit of crowd-funding. He said the additional funds would allow him to make the film as designed, within a budget of $5-6 million.
"I'm sorry for the hoopla," he wrote. "I'm sorry if your friends think you've been duped. But you haven't been. This is real. Crowd-sourcing films is here to stay."
Braff follows Rob Thomas' popular Kickstarter campaign to bring the cult TV show "Veronica Mars" back as a film. That project, too, had outside investment from Warner Bros.
Not everyone is a fan of "The Great Gatsby'''s hip-hop flavored soundtrack, but director Baz Luhrmann says using modern music was essential to capturing the spirit of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel.
"We wanted the film to feel like how it would have felt to read the novel in 1925," the director told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival, where the movie provided opening-night screen fireworks and red-carpet glamor.
"Fitzgerald put music front and center in his novel. He took African-American street music called jazz and he put it right as a star in the book. People said, 'Why are you doing that? It's a fad, it'll be gone next week.' And he said, because I want this book to feel right here, right now."
Luckily for Luhrmann, "Gatsby" star Leonardo DiCaprio introduced him to Jay-Z, and the superstar agreed to help score the film. Two of Jay-Z's own tracks ? "$100 Bill" and the Grammy-winning jam "No Church in the Wild" ? feature on the soundtrack, and he elicited contributions from the wife Beyonce, Emeli Sande and Lana Del Rey.
Luhrmann also used the soundtrack to counter criticism of the absence of African-American speaking characters in the movie ? as in Fitzgerald's book.
"Jay said that music is a star in the film so I think there is a great African-American presence in this film and I am very, very grateful for it," he said.
The French Riviera is a magnet for gamblers, so it's no surprise that oddsmakers are speculating furiously about who will win prizes from the Cannes Film Festival jury headed by Steven Spielberg.
Journalist and Cannes betting expert Neil Young ranks "Grisgris," by Chadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, the early favorite for the Palme d'Or prize at 5-1. That is followed by "The Past," from Iran's Asghar Farhadi ? who won an Academy Award for "A Separation" ? at 11-2 and U.S. director James Gray's 1920s New York story "The Immigrant" at 13-2.
Other frontrunners are "Like Father, Like Son" from Korean director Kore-eda Hirokazu; Arnaud Desplechin's "Jimmy P," with Benicio del Toro as a traumatized Native American war veteran; and Alexander Payne's road movie "Nebraska."
But none of those films has even screened yet, and the odds are sure to change often before the prizes are handed out May 26.
Add Julianne Moore to those who are commending Angelina Jolie for her decision to reveal her choice to have a double mastectomy.
"I'm impressed with her and I'm impressed with her announcement, particularly because I feel there are so many women who are facing the same kind of choice, and it's a way to kind of validate and have solidarity with women who are having the same issue," Moore said in an interview from Cannes.
"It's obviously a really, really complicated (decision), and so I think her decision to go public about something like that can only help other women."
Jolie announced this week that she had both breasts removed recently because she had a very high chance of developing breast and ovarian cancer. Jolie has since had reconstructive surgery. Jolie's mother had breast cancer and died of ovarian cancer, while her grandmother suffered from ovarian cancer.
The chefs who prepared the dinner for the Cannes Film Festival's opening gala were as starry as the guests.
Anne Sophie Pic, who is a three-star Michelin chef, and Bruno Oger, who has two, collaborated for the four-course meal after the festival's opening night film of "The Great Gatsby" on Wednesday night.
Guests were treated to a menu that included King crab with shrimp and sea bass with rhubarb and celery. Select media were given a preview on Tuesday.
Pic and Oger will join other chefs during the festival at the Electrolux Agora Pavillion to ensure that VIPs get top cuisine.
BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian rebels launched a coordinated assault on the main prison in the northern city of Aleppo Wednesday in an attempt to free hundreds of regime opponents believed to be held in the facility, activists said, while an Internet blackout engulfed the country for the second time in two weeks.
Aleppo emerged as one of the major fronts in the country's civil war after a rebel offensive there in July, and the fighting since then has settled into a bloody stalemate. The city, Syria's largest, holds strategic and symbolic value, and both sides have taken significant losses in the battle to expand the turf under their control.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels detonated two car bombs simultaneously outside the walls of the central prison Wednesday morning before trying to storm the facility. Fierce clashes are taking place between President Bashar Assad's troops and opposition fighters around the detention center, according to Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The city's central prison is believed to be holding some 4,000 prisoners, around 250 of whom are jailed for reasons related to the 26-month-old uprising against Assad's regime, said Abdul-Rahman, who relies on reports from a network of informants based in Syria.
For weeks, rebel fighters have been battling government troops in the area around the prison to try to seize the facility and free the prisoners. Earlier this month, the rebels overran the headquarters of the government's anti-terrorism forces that is located near the jail.
Wednesday's Internet outage, which Syria around 10:00 a.m. local time, appeared similar to last week's blackout, Syrian residents and the U.S.-based Renesys Corp. said.
"It looks like a replay of what happened on the seventh and eighth," Renesys chief technology officer James Cowie said by telephone, referring to last week's nationwide outage. He said the cause was not immediately clear.
"It's entirely consistent with a technical fault at a central facility; it's also completely consistent with a decision to use an Internet kill switch," he said.
Preliminary data from Google Inc.'s Transparency Report website also pointed to a nationwide blackout, with Syria's online traffic share nose-diving to 0 percent on Wednesday morning.
Syrian government websites, including the SANA state news agency, appeared to be down, but SANA reported on its twitter account a technical problem. It said maintenance units were working to restore the Internet as soon as possible. It did not elaborate.
An official at the Syrian communications department said an Internet cable was cut in a Damascus suburb and that it will take up to four hours to fix. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements. He did not say what caused the cut.
Syrian authorities have shut off phone and Internet service in select areas in the past to disrupt rebel communications when regime forces were conducting major operations.
Such widespread blackouts, however, have been rare, and the reason for the May 7 outage is still unclear.
Also Wednesday, at least 23 rebel factions, including Islamic groups, joined forces in a push to reopen an arms supply route and retake a key town near Damascus that fell back to regime troops last month.
The rebel groups, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, battled government troops around the town of Otaybah, east of the capital, the Observatory said. The army regained control of Otaybah in late April, cutting the opposition's arms route between Jordan and the capital.
There are scores of rebel brigades in Syria. They operate without a unified command structure, but sometimes coordinate to increase their fighting power on individual operations.
In the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, clashes erupted after unknown gunmen disrupted a street march to mark the 65th anniversary of Palestinians' mass displacement during the war that followed Israel's founding in 1948, the state news agency said.
While many Palestinians in Syria have remained on the sidelines during a 26-month conflict, the Yarmouk camp has been the scene of heavy clashes between a small, pro-Assad group, The Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine-General Command, and armed Palestinians fighting on the opposition side.
More than 70,000 people have been killed since the revolt against Assad's rule erupted in March 2011, and over a million more have sought shelter in neighboring countries. Millions of others have been displaced inside Syria.
In Jordan, the U.N. refugee agency warned that the relentless fighting has been driving unprecedented numbers of Syrians into neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraqis, straining the countries' water and food resources to the limit.
Andrew Harper, the UNHCR representative to Jordan, said the U.N. has received only half of the $1.5 billion pledged by international donors to cover the refugees' needs until June.
A Jordanian government spokesman for Syrian refugee affairs, Anmar Hmoud, said Wednesday that the kingdom hosts 535,000 Syrian refugees, while more 150,000 have found shelter in the Zaatari camp near the border with Syria.
UNHCR expects that total number of Syrians in Jordan could double by the end of the year.
__
AP writers Raphael Satter in London, Albert Aji in Damascus and Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the second-ranking Democrat in the House, said Wednesday he supports the Obama administration's ouster of Steven Miller, acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, after the agency targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
President Barack Obama announced Wednesday evening that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew requested Miller's resignation after a Treasury Department inspector general's report found that lower-level IRS staff acted out of incompetence holding conservative groups under greater scrutiny ahead of the 2012 elections. Some Republicans said Miller's job wasn't sufficient to halt questions, but Hoyer called the response appropriate for the short term.
"I certainly think Jack Lew was correct, and it was good the president said there's going to be accountability and responsibility," Hoyer, the House minority whip, told The Huffington Post shortly after Obama's remarks. "And the guy who's the head, like the coach, takes the responsibility. I think it was the appropriate action."
"The president's correct and Americans ought to be angry," Hoyer added. "We cannot have the IRS showing any favoritism or targeting people. They have to have the credibility and confidence of the American public."
The inspector general's 48-page report released Tuesday confirmed the targeting of conservative groups was not politically motivated. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle nonetheless called on Obama to respond forcefully. Beyond Miller's resignation, the president said he had instructed Lew to look further into why group with words like "tea party" in their names were subjected to greater scrutiny while applying for 501(c)(4) status. Obama also said he would "work with Congress as it performs its oversight role" in investigating the IRS.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called on the president to "work openly and transparently with Congress to get to the bottom of the scandal." Hoyer said he was reluctant to say what actions lawmakers should take.
Asked whether he agreed with his colleague Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that Republicans were politicizing the IRS scandal, Hoyer said it was an "unfortunate" consequence of a polarized Congress.
"The last Congress was one of the most political Congresses in which I've served," Hoyer said. "This Congress continues to be political, so I'm not surprised. I think it's unfortunate. I don't think the president had anything to do with this."
He added: "I think it was the policy of the IRS to try and simplify their job, and they did it incorrectly."
A few minutes ago BlackBerry announced BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for iOS. With that announcement, every single one of Apple's major mobile competitors now makes apps for iOS. Google, who also has Android, makes many very popular apps including Gmail, Maps, Google+, etc. Microsoft, who also has Windows Phone, makes a bunch of apps and games for iOS, including OneNote and Kinnectimals. Nokia, Microsoft's primary Windows Phone partner, also makes Here Maps.
Attorney General Eric Holder has overseen more leak investigations under Obama than were pursued under Bush
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
Attorney General Eric Holder has said that he doesn?t want the Obama administration?s leak prosecutions ?to be his legacy.? But he has also trumpeted the cases?six and counting?in response to criticism from Senate Republicans. ?We have tried more leak cases?brought more leak cases during the course of this administration than any other administration,? Holder said before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year.
This shouldn?t be a source of pride, even the fake point-scoring kind. In light of the Justice Department?s outrageously broad grab of the phone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press, the administration?s unprecedented criminalizing of leaks has become embarrassing. This is not what Obama?s supporters thought they were getting. Obama the candidate strongly supported civil liberties and protections for whistle-blowers. Obama the president risks making government intrusion into the investigative work of the press a galling part of his legacy.
Here?s the official excuse, from the Justice Department?s letter to AP today and from the daily White House press briefing: ?The president feels strongly that we need the press to be able to be unfettered in its pursuit of investigative journalism,? press secretary Jay Carney said. ?He is also mindful of the need for secret and classified information to remain secret and classified in order to protect our national security interests.? That sounds like a perfectly reasonable balancing, but in practice, it?s not. Between 1917 and 1985, there was one successful federal leak prosecution. The Obama White House, by contrast, has pursued leaks ?with a surprising relentlessness,? as Jane Mayer wrote in her masterful New Yorker piece about the prosecution of Thomas Drake. Of Holder and Obama?s six unlucky targets, Drake is the guy who best fits the whistle-blower profile: He gave information to a Baltimore Sun reporter who wrote ?a prize-winning series of articles for the Sun about financial waste, bureaucratic dysfunction, and dubious legal practices? in the National Security Agency. After years of hounding, the case against Drake fell apart, and he wound up pleading guilty to one misdemeanor. No jail time.
The Drake prosecution started under President George W. Bush. So did the leak prosecution of Jeffrey Sterling, the former CIA officer charged with disclosing information about Iran to James Risen of the New York Times. But Obama?s Justice Department has also launched its own prosecutions, as the AP probe underscores. As Scott Shane and Charlie Savage pointed out last year in the New York Times, it was in 2009, the first year of Obama?s presidency, that DOJ and the director of national intelligence created a taskforce that ?streamlined procedures to follow up on leaks.? At the same time, the increasing prevalence of electronic records made investigations easier. The result, as Shane and Savage write, is that while the Justice Department used to be ?where leak complaints from the intelligence agencies went to die,? now they are being kept alive.
Nor is there a law or a Supreme Court reading of the constitution to kill them. Timothy Lee lays it out nicely on Wonkblog so I don?t have to: You don?t have a right to protect information that you give to someone else. That?s what the Supreme Court thinks phones calls are?the act of dialing. This could apply to the content of email that lives in the cloud?gmail! Journalists get the benefit of a rule the Justice Department has made for itself, supposedly to prevent interference with the First Amendment?protected work of reporters. The rule says that the attorney general has to approve the demand for records, and that DOJ lawyers have to take all the other reasonable steps they can before drawing up a subpoena, and then write it as narrowly as possible. But the AP probe, and other examples of surveillance of reporters, show that the rules only mean so much.
In Tuesday?s letter to the AP, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said that in this case, DoJ ?undertook a comprehensive investigation, including, among other investigative steps, conducting over 550 interviews and reviewing tens of thousands of documents, before seeking the toll records at issue.? But that doesn?t really tell us whether this ordering up of phone records was a valid response to an egregious leak that breached national security, or another Drake affair. The AP thinks the Justice Department wants to know how it reported a story in May 2012 about the CIA?s foiling of a plot by al-Qaida?s Yemen affiliate to plant a bomb on a plane. Here?s the story. The AP said at the time that it actually held off publishing for a week, in response to White House and CIA requests, ?because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way.? The government knows things I don?t, of course, but reading the story now, it?s hard to see a threat to national security in the content?it?s just not all that detailed.
Whether a leak threatens national security is clearly not the standard Holder and his department are using. And the problem is that the standard is up to them. The 1917 Espionage Act, the basis for most of these cases, was written to go after people who compromised military operations. Back in 1973, the major law review article on that statute concluded that Congress never intended to go after journalists with it, or even their sources. Since then, legal scholars have proposed various ways of narrowing the Espionage Act?University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone wants to limit the law?s reach to cases in which there?s proof that a reporter knows publication will wreck national security without contributing to the public debate. But Congress has done nothing of the sort. Wouldn?t it be nice if the Republicans who are indignant over the AP investigation got serious about reform? Somehow, I doubt it. Instead, with a Democratic White House leading the charge, it?s hard to see who will stop this train.
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Public release date: 16-May-2013
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