“There’s a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public’s business risk being branded traitors,” said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. “I don’t know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad.”

President Bush has called the NSA leak “a shameful act” that was “helping the enemy,” and said in December that he was hopeful the Justice Department would conduct a full investigation into the disclosure.

“We need to protect the right to free speech and the First Amendment, and the president is doing that,” said White House spokesman Trent Duffy. “But, at the same time, we do need to protect classified information which helps fight the war on terror.” (Read more at WaPo)

What. The. Fuck?