Leaker Prosecuted As Other Worse Leakers Go Unpunished
The New York Times reports:
In a rare legal action against a government employee accused of leaking secrets, a grand jury has indicted a former senior National Security Agency official on charges of providing classified information to a newspaper reporter in hundreds of e-mail messages in 2006 and 2007.
The official, Thomas A. Drake, 52, was also accused of obstructing justice by shredding documents, deleting computer records and lying to investigators who were looking into the reporter’s sources.
So what did this fellow leak? Apparently the articles based on his leaks
examined in detail the failings of several major N.S.A. programs, costing billions of dollars, using computers to collect and sort electronic intelligence. The efforts were plagued with technical flaws and cost overruns.
. . . .
The articles, though, did not focus on the most highly protected N.S.A. secrets — whose communications it collects, exactly how it collects them and what countries’ codes it has broken.
Right. For prosecutions of leaks like that — like the leaks of the NSA secret surveillance program, or the Swift terrorist finance tracking program — we’re going to have to wait until approximately never.
The quote is an accurate description of then-Baltimore Sun (now-WSJ) reporter Siobhan Gorman’s articles on the NSA. She focused on mismanagement–over-budget computer system renovations, bureaucratic personnel decisions, and the like.
AMac (c822c9) — 4/16/2010 @ 7:48 amTo follow Patterico’s line on the SWIFT program leaks, how many millions were spent investigating the “leak” of worthless desk jockey Valerie Plame?
Now compare that to the lack of interest by Holder in pursuing the Gitmo law society for intentionally exposing the ID’s of interrogators. Add the coverage he provides to the gitmo 7 who work for him.
Security is a four letter word to this regime… unless you’re talking about hiding the regime’s crimes.
MaaddMaaxx (b91eb0) — 4/16/2010 @ 10:06 amThis is the moral equivelent of a “crusading district attorney” shutting down a random bookie-joint and cat-house just before election;
it’s Boob-bait for the Bubba’s!
Classic deflection…
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, to find there have been leaks at the NoSuchAgency!
No, I’ve never been told of a problem at the….what is the CIA?
AD - RtR/OS! (f9a039) — 4/16/2010 @ 10:51 amHow about we prosecute the high-level NSA officials who broke federal law? You know, the one that says you can go to prison for five years for spying on people without warrants?
I know that the rule of law doesn’t apply to the powerful in the worldview of conservatives, but we could at least make some sort of pretext at being a society where National Security isn’t used as a trump card to do whatever the fuck the feds want to do.
BTW, you seem to have missed this story from a month back:
AJB (3008d4) — 4/16/2010 @ 11:06 amhttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36119748/ns/us_news-security/
AJB:
I have an idea. How about you take seriously the presumption of innocence.
Your cite seems to indicate to me that justice was served.
In making the argument, the Obama administration agreed with the Bush administration’s position on the case but insisted it came to the decision differently.
Laws apply equally no matter which particular political party is in power and they have to suffer the consequences when laws are broken.
Besides that, I’m sick of both sides citing the “rule of law,” especially when making pronouncements on how its been broken without the case being taken to conclusion.
What’s you’re problem anyway? And, oh, the feds are Democrats now.
Putz.
Ag80 (f67beb) — 4/16/2010 @ 9:27 pm