It is a federal crime to eavesdrop on, tape record, or disclose the contents of other people's cellular telephone conversations. The same law that makes these activities illegal also allows the victim of such eavesdropping to sue the snoop and his confederates for punitive damages.
But what if one of the apparent malefactors is a senior congressional Democrat? And what if the embarrassed victims are senior congressional Republicans? And what if the party that made the conversations public is the New York Times? Well, then the wiretapping is a positive public service, and the law should not apply. According to the New York Times, anyway.
At issue is that late 1996 phone call among House Republican leaders that two Florida Democrats, John and Alice Martin, heard over their police scanner and tape recorded. The Martins, you'll recall, delivered the resulting recording to Rep. Jim McDermott, ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee. And McDermott then promptly played the recording for Times reporter Adam Clymer. Clymer wrote an account of the conversation designed to make it appear that House speaker Newt Gingrich had violated an agreement with the Ethics Committee.
House GOP conference chairman John Boehner, who was in Florida and whose cell phone was the Martins' immediate target, has now sued McDermott, as the law allows. The Times editorial page, amazingly, calls Boehner's suit a " vindictive political move . . . that threatens to trample on free speech and Congressional prerogatives." So it's McDermott's prerogative as a congressman to break the law, but it's vindictive for Boehner to complain? Anything that humiliates Newt Gingrich apparently constitutes "information of substantial public interest." And no matter how such information might be obtained, the Times argues, American citizens, "including members of Congress," must be able to facilitate its publication "without fear of legal reprisal." Call it the "Clymer exemption" to the federal wiretapping ban.
Hmmmm. Say someone were to break into the law offices of Clinton lawyer David Kendall and steal memoranda describing Kendall's conversations with the president about Monica Lewinsky. Say those documents were to wind up at THE WEEKLY STANDARD by way of John Boehner. Say we were to publish them because they contained "information of substantial public interest" -- which any such documents surely would. And say Clinton or Kendall were then to sue John Boehner, a result the law would clearly sanction and encourage. What would happen then? Do you think the New York Times editorial page would criticize the president and his lawyer for daring to "trample on free speech and Congressional prerogatives"?
No? Neither do we.