Why no special prosecutor for the latest CIA leak case?
Christopher Hitchens asks this question here
But now, instead of being rewarded for her probity, Mary McCarthy has been given the sack. And the New York Times rushes to her aid, with a three-hankie story on April 23, moistly titled “Colleagues Say Fired CIA Analyst Played by the Rules.” This is only strictly true if she confined her disagreement to official channels, as she did when she wrote to Clinton in 1998. Sadly enough, the same article concedes that McCarthy may have lied and then eventually told the truth about having unauthorized contact with members of the press.
Well! In that case the remedy is clear. A special counsel must be appointed forthwith, to discover whether the CIA has been manipulating the media. All civil servants and all reporters with knowledge must be urged to comply, and to produce their notes or see the inside of a jail. No effort must be spared to discover the leaker. This is, after all, the line sternly proposed by the New York Times and many other media outlets in the matter of the blessed Joseph Wilson and his martyred CIA spouse, Valerie Plame.
I have a sense that this is not the media line that will be taken in the case of McCarthy, any more than it was the line taken when James Risen and others disclosed the domestic wiretapping being conducted by the NSA. Risen’s story is also the object of an investigation into unlawful disclosure. One can argue that national security is damaged by unauthorized leaks, or one can argue that democracy is enhanced by them. But one cannot argue, in the case of a man who says that his CIA wife did not send him to Niger, that the proof that his wife did send him to Niger must remain a state secret. If one concerned official can brief the press off the record, then so can another.
Interesting perspective coming off this ABC News release, which seems to tell the reader that leaks are okay!
The firing this week of a veteran CIA analyst for disclosing confidential information is just the latest reminder that leaking government secrets can be a dangerous and risky game.
After all, leaking has been around as long as the nation itself.
In 1794, George Washington was outraged when Alexander Hamilton released details of a treaty negotiation.
Benjamin Franklin lost his job as postmaster after he leaked private letters to reveal political leanings of colonial leaders ” letters that helped fan the flames of the Revolution.
“Leaks have been around since Jefferson was complaining about newspapers and what they were doing to him,” said Howard Kurtz, media critic for The Washington Post. “The difference now is you have so many more media outlets and a 24-hour digital world [so] that the leak can instantly go around the globe. You don’t have to wait for the newspaper to be delivered on horseback.”
Not that there was any shortage of horseback riding leakers in the old days. In fact, you might say it was the “midnight ride” of Paul Revere and his unauthorized disclosure of British troop movements back in 1775 that led to the birth of our nation.
Since then, our leaders have relied on leaks as an essential political tool, with everyone from Honest Abe Lincoln to FDR, Dwight Eisenhower and JFK.
And from the WSJOur Rotten IntelligenCIA
To media partisans, some leaks are more equal than others.
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