Politicians Grandstand About Leaks, But The Rest Of Us See The Prosecution Of Whistleblowers

from the priorities,-people dept

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Early last week, we wrote about the oddity of how the White House didn't seem to much mind "leaks" that made the President look good in terms of being "tough" on our enemies, such as in the NY Times story confirming that the US was behind the Stuxnet malware, and that the President himself was very familiar with the program. This came at the same time as the White House continuing to vindictively prosecute people responsible for even very minor leaks, such as the Thomas Drake affair , in which some whistleblowing about out-of-control spending at the NSA tuned into a malicious prosecution.Soon after that story came out, the issue of "good leaks" and "bad leaks" became a huge political football, as it gave the President's opponents an angle to attack him for leaking classified info . The President himself had to shoot back and insist that there were no such leaks happening from the White House -- which is clearly not true . Some of the information could havecome from administration officials.And, of course, it wasn't just limited to Stuxnet, but other "leaks" of classified info, such as stories around the unmanned drone strike program, which lots of people have reported on, but which is still "classified." Of course, we've now seen grandstanding on both sides of the aisle decrying these leaks -- butInstead, they all seem to be upset about the leaks themselves, rather than the fact that these questionable activities were secret in the first place. As John Cook recently wrote, these kinds of "leaks" are important because they let us know what our government is doing in our name. That's why these aren't, so much as whistleblowing. And that's an important distinction. That's doubly true as we see to what ridiculous lengths the very same administration goes to in order to attack anyone who reveals information that makes it look bad.One person's leak is another person's whistleblowing. To treat them all as "leaks" that must be punished (often severely) creates a significant chilling effect on reporting on key issues -- and (worse) gives the government a bubble in which it gets to abuse its power. Rather than condemning all these "leaks," we should be trying to (a) celebrate those who blew the whistle and (b) understand the details behind why such things were secret in the first place.

Filed Under: leak, nsa, obama, stuxnet, thomas drake, whistleblower, white house