Attorney General Alberto Gonzales indicated yesterday that he will not rule out prosecution for the New York Times reporters who exposed the NSA’s terrorist surveillance program:

On [ABC’s This Week], when asked if journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information, Gonzales responded, “There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility.” He was referring to the 1917 Espionage Act, which made it a crime for an unauthorized person to receive national defense information and to transmit it to others. Under that act, the Justice Department is prosecuting two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for receiving and transmitting classified information they received from a Defense Department official, who recently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who is presiding over the AIPAC case, is weighing a motion to dismiss the charges based on the defendants’ claim that the 89-year-old espionage statute is unconstitutionally vague and might violate the First Amendment. “I understand very much the role that the press plays in our society, the protection under the First Amendment we want to promote and respect . . . but 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 said.

I still think jailing journalists is the wrong approach, politically and legally, and doesn’t solve the more serious and clear-cut problem of government officials leaking classified information about national-security programs in order to undermine them. Prosecute the leakers and you send a much stronger signal without the First-Amendment complications.

Expose the Left has the video.