David Patraeus, Who Leaked Classified Info To His Mistress, Says Snowden Should Be Prosecuted

from the say-that-again? dept

Not all leaks are alike, nor are their makers. Gen. David Petraeus, for instance, provided his illicit lover and favorable biographer information so secret it defied classification, including the names of covert operatives and the president’s private thoughts on matters of strategic concern. Petraeus was not charged with a felony, as the Justice Department had initially recommended, but was instead permitted to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. Had an enlisted soldier of modest rank pulled out a stack of highly classified notebooks and handed them to his girlfriend to secure so much as a smile, he’d be looking at many decades in prison, not a pile of character references from a Who’s Who of the Deep State.

Should Edward Snowden be prosecuted, I ask? “Unquestionably,” he replies. “If Snowden had wanted to help that debate he could have very easily been a whistleblower who could have gone to the appropriate organisation and offered his views. He didn’t.”

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Last week, the Intercept published Ed Snowden's powerful foreword to Jeremy Scahill's new book The Assassination Complex . The foreword is entitled: Whistleblowing Is Not Just Leaking — It’s an Act of Political Resistance . It's really worth reading. In it, among other things, he does note that there are very different kinds of leaking information. There are situations where you are alerting the public to important information. And then there are... other situations. Like what happened to former CIA Director, General David Petraeus:That's a pretty good summary of the "high court" situation that lets powerful people like Petraeus get away with passing on such information that could have legitimately put people at risk.So, it was interesting, just days later, to see a long interview in the Financial Times with David Petraeus , in which he's asked about Snowden (warning: the link may be paywalled). The interview covers many subjects, and the comment on Snowden is quite brief:This is bullshit on so many levels., it's bullshit because Petreaus himself got off with barely a wrist slap for his own activity, which had nothing to do with whistleblowing and appeared to be much more dangerous than what Snowden did., as Petreaus absolutely knows, the intelligence communitytreat whistleblowers well. Previous whistleblowers, including Thomas Drake , basically had their lives destroyed as punishment for using the "appropriate" channels for whistleblowing. Hell, just last week, we wrote about yet another case of an intelligence community whistleblower, who used the "appropriate" channels, suddenly having her home raided and her career in shambles., it's bullshit because even in using the "appropriate" channels, as an NSA, Snowden was not protected from direct retaliation for whistleblowing., it's bullshit because the "proper channels" would just be to run it up the line of people who thought it was hunky dory tototo enable them to spy on everyone's communications data. That wouldn't have done anything., it's bullshit because once the information actually did get out through the press -- which never would have happened through "appropriate channels," it has set in motion a number of changes, among companies the intelligence community . That's the point of whistleblowing, to actually change the behavior through alerting more people to what's going on.But, really, it seems especially idiotic that someone in Petreaus' position would weigh in so hypocritically on Snowden's situation.

Filed Under: david petraeus, ed snowden, high court, leaks, low court, prosecution, whistleblowing