White House Focuses On Leaks To The Media
The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.
In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI’s Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA’s warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.
Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program, according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers are also considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking.
In a little-noticed case in California, FBI agents from Los Angeles have already contacted reporters at the Sacramento Bee about stories published in July that were based on sealed court documents related to a terrorism case in Lodi, according to the newspaper.
The usual reactionaries are telling us that this threat to jail reporters ought to “scare the hell” out of us, but I think that’s a little misleading. This move is not aimed at prosecuting journalists for reporting leaked information but rather forcing those journalists to turn over information as to who leaked the information in the first place.
That is an important distinction to make.
From my understanding of the law it is not illegal to publish classified government information, even if it is illegally leaked to you by a government official. It is, however, illegal to obstruct an investigation into a crime. The people who leak this information are guilty of a serious crime, and journalists who protect these sources become complicit in that crime when they refuse to cooperate with government investigations.
