These leaks often come from career bureaucrats rather than from politicians. There could be many reasons, from an honest believe that the leak is the right thing to do to mundane turf wars and inter-agency rivalries and vendettas.
Washington is a VERY leaky place. It’s been like that for a long time, but we haven’t heard much about during the 90’s because the stakes were low and no one cared all that much. Now the stakes are higher, so the leaks are being investigated and reported on.
And of course the leaks should be prosecuted, even if they were done for the ‘right’ reasons. Because people with security clearances don’t get to decide when information should or should not be made public. They have no right to do so. You want to be a whistle blower? Fine. Stand up and take the consequences. It’s very dangerous to security to establish a standard that people who leak classified information for ‘good’ reasons can escape prosecution.
Justice. Generally, disclosure of illegal government activity comes under the heading of “whistleblowing.” In this case, it might put a stop to intrusive and unauthorized surveillance of U.S. citizens here, and torture of U.S. detainees abroad. That’s worth doing, whatever the “damage” – and what exactly is this “damage” you speak of, anyway? :dubious:
:rolleyes: The cases are not parallel. Disclosing the identity of an undercover CIA operative might put her field contacts’ lives at risk. The disclosures in question here put nothing at risk but the Administration’s credibility.
Whistleblower status applies to fraud, waste and abuse of government property or resources. Not the disclosure of classified information in direct violation of the law.
That question is impossible for me to answer, as I’m not directly involved in the national security apparatus and not privy to current intelligence efforts.
Whether the leaks meet your standard of damage or not, they were still a violation of the law…as was the Plame leak.
But the existence of the matters disclosed was far more damaging to our republic than the disclosure. It’s astonishing that you can’t seem to get your mind around that basic and obvious fact.
Jonathan Schell has the right take on this: The Bush Admin has crossed a line here. Instead of denying the illegal acts, as it always did before, it has openly claimed the authority to do them. That is a very alarming trend. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060109/schell:
From U.S. Code Title 18 Section 798 (John’s link):
How do we even know whether the information disclosed was ever designated as “classified”? (I don’t think a general intra-agency understanding would qualify.)
It must be getting really difficult to be a Bush apologist. They appear to be reduced to distracting attention away from one administration scandal by directing it towards a different administration scandal.
Or maybe we just don’t think some of these ‘scandals’ are actually scandals. So far, it looks to me like in this latest thing there weren’t any laws broken, Bush did due diligence to get a sign-off from the justice department and notify Congress, and the program may have actually helped fight the war on terror. And so far, it looks like the majority of Americans agree.
You guys live in an echo chamber where everything Bush does that is questionable gets elevated to a high crime, and then you scream back and forth about how evil it all is. All evidence to the contrary gets pushed aside. Over time, all you can see is the huge pile of ‘scandals’, lies, and malfeasance you think Bush has engaged in, and nothing else.
The right did the same thing with Clinton. From Vince Foster to Travelgate to Whitewater to Waco, indictments of white house officials, Monica, allegations of influence buying by the Chinese, plus all the ‘out there’ accusations that floated around Republican circles - plus never hearing the good things that happened, or paying attention to the evidence that contradicted what they wanted to believe. By the time Clinton was out of office, there were plenty of nutbar Republicans convinced that he was a lying, murdering, traitorous monster.
Bush makes plenty of mistakes. He’s a lousy speaker. His administration made lots of bad judgements in carrying out the war in Iraq. But so far, he strikes me as someone who is interested in doing the right thing for the country. He’s not in bed with big oil, he’s not being run by Dick Cheney, there is no connection to Haliburton, and he’s not running roughshod over the rights of the people. The current dispute over the wiretap stuff is not criminal - it’s a typical dispute between the Executive and Leglislative branch over where authority lies. There are plenty of legal scholars who have weighed in on both sides of the question, which tells you that it’s a close decision. As you would expect.
This is a losing issue for Democrats. The fact that Bush is out there defending this program vigorously instead of running from it tells you that he still thinks he’s right, and so far he’s got the people on his side - 64% of them, as of the last poll I saw. That’s pretty much everyone but the partisan Democrats. Good luck getting traction with this.
You must work for the CIA, BG. Because only by knowing the status of each investigation that the intelligence community is involved in would allow you to make that statement with such bold certainty.
I have deleted the quotation that BrainGlutton submitted in post #32 because it exceeded the SDMB view of Fair Use. While we are not so scrupulous as to count words, our guideline has generally been to limit quotations to less than 10% of a work.
Did you read the OP? Or are you jumping to this conclusion because I haven’t accused GWB of impaling the babies of liberals on pikes in front of the White House?
Are we talking about the same story? Do you have a cite or anything for any of that?