Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Depsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff presents former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award during a ceremony at the Pentagon, 2013. Leaks that benefit these officials are unlikely to be prosecuted.
Freedom of the Press Foundation's Trevor Timm tells Boing Boing,
Two stories this week make it perfectly clear that the Obama admin
thinks it's okay to leak highly sensitive secrets to newspapers for
political benefit.One involves the contents of Hillary's still-secret emails, but the
other is far more interesting: US officials leaked the fact that Israel
spied on Iran-US nuclear negotiations to the Wall Street Journal. But
more importantly, they also leaked HOW they knew this: because the US
spied on Israeli officials too. This is exactly the type of "sources and
methods" the national security establishment rakes Edward Snowden over the coals for
– including just this week in a WSJ editorial! – but there's not a peep
when it's done to further US interests, despite being just as illegal.
Trevor wrote about this for the Guardian today in an op-ed: "It's OK to leak government secrets – as long as it benefits politicians."
