Journalist Randy Credico is being oppressed by Congress via a subpoena issued by the House Intelligence Committee. He wrote a 14-part series on Julian Assange and visited him. These are innocent activities.
We are all of us oppressed by this issuance and power of Congress as it means we live with a Congressional option to discomfort us, possibly harm our reputations, charge us with contempt or lying, or find some other crime to charge us with.
If we go back to the origins of the Fourth Amendment, one root of it is a case in 1765 that “involved pamphleteers charged with seditious libel for criticizing the king’s ministers and, through them, the king himself. In both cases, agents of the king issued a warrant authorizing the ransacking of the pamphleteers’ homes and the seizure of all their books and papers.”
The Congress is attempting to ransack and seize Credico’s papers via subpoena.
The Congress has been allowed extensive subpoena powers like this by the Supreme Court through a 1961 case: Wilkinson v. United States. That ruling desecrated and destroyed the Fourth Amendment. A subpoena need only meet very loose requirements.
Here’s what’s been demanded of Credico:
“A letter dated Nov. 9 from Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in effect, demanded Credico’s ‘voluntary’ cooperation with the panel’s ‘bipartisan investigation into Russian active measures directed at the 2016 US election.’
Credico declined the invitation. A subpoena then was issued demanding his appearance on Dec. 15 and also his papers:
“Schiff also requested ‘the preservation and production of all documents, records, electronically-stored information, recordings, data and tangible things, including but not limited to graphs, charts, photographs, images and other documents, regardless of form other than those widely available (e.g. newspaper articles) related to the committee’s investigation, your interview and any ancillary matters.'”
Who pays for his expenses? Who pays for the legal services he must now seek? What if he misses some records?
This subpoena is of the same ilk as the 1765 case in which the king issued a warrant against the pamphleteers.
If a writer does an intensive series on a controversial figure, how will this power affect the results? How many writers will be discouraged from even starting the project? Why should writers be grilled like this? How far does this go in abridging free speech, that is, an unimpeded right to publish? Isn’t this a severe tax on such speech, demanding Credico’s appearance and all of his work papers? Has he no privacy? No right of untaxed speech?
What good was the American Revolution if it comes to this?
1:26 pm on November 30, 2017
