For instance, Dick Cheney.

In 2003, as the invasion of Iraq was underway, Cheney authorized Scooter Libby "to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration’s use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records," reports Murray Waas for the National Journal. "According to sources with firsthand knowledge, Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate], to defend the administration’s use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war," in other words go after U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had revealed to the world the Bush administration’s claim that Saddam was buying uranium in Niger was horse puckey. In Bushzarro world, it is perfectly legitimate to release classified information if it discredits (or endangers, as in the case of Valerie Plame Wilson) the opposition or those in the media documenting the criminal behavior of the neocons.

"I can’t imagine a bigger chill on free speech and the public’s right to know what it’s government is up to—both hallmarks of a democracy—than prosecuting reporters," Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Yahoo News. Of course, the neocons have a visceral dislike for the so-called "hallmarks of a democracy" (we should be talking about the hallmarks of a constitutionally limited republic, but never mind). As fascist Straussians, firm believers in totalitarian government at home and destruction of societies abroad, the neocons are quite naturally opposed to the "public’s right to know." Our Straussian rulers are fond of Plato’s ideal of the Republic—no relation to the republic espoused by John Locke and other classic liberals—ruled by "wise" philosopher kings while the great unwashed masses suffer Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (in the current context, we are distracted by idiot tube shadows cast on cave walls). For the Straussians, the "public’s right to know" is anathema, as it and the First Amendment (and indeed the entire Bill of Rights) undermine the rule of the philosopher kings and the "gentlemen" who run the global gulag and profit handsomely in the process.

According to Gonzales, as summarized by Yahoo News, "the First Amendment right of a free press should not be absolute when it comes to national security," that is to say when it comes to keeping secret the neocon criminal conspiracy. "It can’t be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity," Gonzales told ABC. Americans should realize they are in trouble when an apologist and facilitator of torture claims to speak for them. Of course, the vast majority of American could not care less. One does not need the Bill of Rights to watch Taylor Hicks and the contestants on American Idol.

Gonzales and the Bush neocons have adapted an archaic law in their zeal to pull tighter the veil of secrecy over their criminal activities—the 1917 Espionage Act, a law passed shortly after the United States entered World War One making it a crime for a person to convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its declared enemies. Woodrow Wilson insisted the bill be passed and enforced as a way to deal with dissent against the war and the Supreme Court upheld the law to be constitutional (Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes joined the Court majority in upholding the conviction of Charles Schenck, a socialist who made the mistake of distributing an antiwar pamphlet against the Conscription Act, or rather the Involuntary Servitude or Bullet Stopper Act).

Not surprisingly, the neocons are anxious to dust off this archaic law and use it against political enemies, beginning with the corporate media, or elements within the corporate media a bit too zealous in their rush to publish articles revealing the criminal behavior of the Bushites, not so much as a duty to inform the public but rather as a way to sell newspapers and make happy advertisers. In essence, Gonzales is telegraphing a message to the corporate media as it on occasion wanders off the straight and narrow—journalists, if they wish to make the note on their condos and BMWs, need to take care who they call and what they submit to editors and publishers. Journos need to take note of Judith Miller, who was jailed for contempt of court by refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating a leak naming Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent. Even faithful Bush shills can be prosecuted and thrown the wolves.