Jail Time [Mary McCarthy]

The American Spectator ^ | April 24, 2006 | Jed Babbin

[Quilla]

Fired CIA intelligence analyst Mary McCarthy has reportedly confessed to leaking facts about the CIA's top-secret terrorist jails in Europe and Southwest Asia to Dana Priest of the Washington Post. As Priest basks in the glory of the Pulitzer Prize she won for those stories, McCarthy is alternately being investigated for criminal prosecution and hailed as a brave crusader for truth, justice and The American Way.

McCarthy is not, as one pundit said, a courageous American citizen exercising her First Amendment rights against an outrageous government policy. If there are no restrictions enforced by law, then there are no secrets. McCarthy is a traitor, someone who leaked top secret information and damaged our national security, risked the lives of Americans fighting a war, and disrupted our relations with nations that had been working with us against a new kind of enemy. McCarthy was an employee, not a policy maker. She has never been elected by the American people or appointed by the President to a position that would have entitled her to disclose that information. (And neither have the senators and congressmen who have leaked facts just as sensitive as those McCarthy passed on to Dana Priest.) Comparing McCarthy's crime to the President's decision to reveal details of a National Intelligence Estimate is a political argument based on a falsehood. The PPresident is the ultimate classification authority. When he decides to reveal information he is exercising one of the powers of the office to which he was elected.

McCarthy took advantage of the position she had been entrusted and violated her legal obligations. Serving in the CIA's inspector general's office, she had a special responsibility. The IG's office is legally authorized to be privy to compartmented information, the highest level of classification. Other CIA employees only see bits and pieces of such information because the compartmentalization system is designed to prevent all but a few top people to see all the pieces and know what they mean in the larger context. She violated her highest duty because her political beliefs were opposed to the policy that the President had established. Her disclosure was politically motivated. She wanted to thwart the policy of the President, and she achieved her goal by committing a felony. McCarthy should be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent the law allows. As should her fellow CIA leakers and manipulators of policy.

McCarthy was not alone among the CIA's analysts and decision makers. As I have written many times, the CIA has been in open revolt against the President since 9-11. Failing to foresee the fall of the Soviet Union, the terrorist attacks before, including and after 9-11, and just about everything else that mattered, the CIA has been an utter failure in the mission it was created to perform. Instead, it has been operating covertly against the government by mounting operations such as the Joe Wilson Niger trip, which was planned and performed only to discredit the President's position that Iraq was seeking uranium for a revived nuclear weapons program. CIA bureaucrats have been spending a lot of time and effort to discredit the President while fighting against the change that will transform it from the failure it has been to an agency that can meet the needs of a nation at war. And in doing so it has fueled the opposition press with these leaks.

America's free press is supposed to be one of the guardians of our freedom. But while the press is free it must also be responsible, and in this it fails comprehensively. The New York Times published the stories of the NSA terrorist surveillance program even after the President made a personal appeal to maintain the secrecy of one of our most highly valued secret programs (probably leaked by McCarthy's CIA pals or their cohorts in NSA and other agencies).

We are at war. Every American, regardless of his job, has a duty to protect the interests of this nation and to place his loyalty to our nation above his own career or political agenda. We aren't talking about Washington gossip, little secrets leaked by little people to raise their status from a "B-list" guest to the "A-list" for the right cocktail parties. We are talking about the essentials for fighting this war that, if revealed as the NSA program and the CIA secret prisons were, can mean the difference between winning the war and enabling our enemies to hit us again as they did on 9-11.

The liberal media is so consumed with its hatred for George Bush that it has lost any sense of loyalty to our nation. This year it gave its highest professional award -- the Pulitzer Prize -- to Dana Priest for her CIA prisons stories and to James Risen, the New York Times reporter who wrote the stories that revealed the NSA terrorist surveillance program. There is not even a debate among the press about whether these reporters should be chastised instead of rewarded. To the contrary, these Pulitzer Prizes make every reporter more eager to discover and publish America's secrets regardless of the consequences to our soldiers and our nation.

How many times have we seen the president subjected to lectures about introspection and demands for apologies by the White House press corps? If reporters, editors and publishers were publicly subjected to that same critical examination they might regain their sense of responsibility to the nation. And they might, in a moment of private introspection, regain the perspective that freedom of the press is not the only essential right enshrined in the Constitution. If a free press is not responsible, it cannot be a defender of freedom. It can become the enemy of all who fight in defense of our way of life. What will they publish next?

[freema]

I can't read any farther than this:

We are at war. Every American, regardless of his job, has a duty to protect the interests of this nation and to place his loyalty to our nation above his own career or political agenda. We aren't talking about Washington gossip, little secrets leaked by little people to raise their status from a "B-list" guest to the "A-list" for the right cocktail parties. We are talking about the essentials for fighting this war that, if revealed as the NSA program and the CIA secret prisons were, can mean the difference between winning the war and enabling our enemies to hit us again as they did on 9-11.

I'm crying too hard. Thank you for posting this.

[ONEBYEONE]

Exactly me too. As a former security control official in the service during a time of war, I can not believe these disloyal pukes who put the lives of our troops at risk. This Attorney General better be making a case on her and that of Sandy Burgler.

[ONEBYEONE]

Juan's statement and that old lady (blonde) on the weekend show of Neal Cavuto's just outraged me. She basically said that she trusted Iran more than President Bush. What a dunce. I hope people watching avoid doing business with her and her company. Let her sell her homes and real estate in Iran.

[no dems]

Put her in a prison cell with a 200 lb. diesel dyke and let the good times roll mama.

[Piquaboy]

Someone should tell our politicians this.

[shield]

Jail Time is right. I was talking to an Army Officer last night and that's the first thing he said~Jail Time.

One can't get away with this...she must be jailed otherwise others will with ease leak classified info. If Mary gets much of nothing then it's a green light for others.

[The Sons of Liberty]

Pure arrogance on her part. She and Sandy Burglar are typical of the Clinton crowd who believe that the rules do not apply to them. Put her in jail and throw away the key.

[crashthe24]

Since there is no proof of the secret prisons, is there any chance that this was bogus info given Mary McCarthy because they knew she was a traitor rat? And how about someone winning a Pulitzer for a fictitious news story?

[Christian4Bush]

bttt

[freema]

I would consider it the highest honor to be selected to serve my country as a volunteer on Mary McCarthy's firing squad.

[Taliesan]

The 60's era Marxists continue their long march through the institutions. The logical outcome is civil war. When the State department and the CIA can actively oppose the sitting President without fear, then the republic itself is in danger.

[kabar]

Babin fails to mention that McCarthy is a political partisan who (herself and her husband) gave over $10K to the Dems in 2004. The big question is, "Has the politization of the CIA affected their intelligence collection and analysis?"

[surrey]

What I don't understand is why she was not arrested. I have to think that they have had the goods on her for awhile. Why let her just walk? Firing is not enough. I hope there's a good reason for their reluctance to get tough with McCarthy.

[Marine_Uncle]

Sadly this stuff is going to continue. It has been in place for a long time. One tests the water, as they get away with more leaks over the years, the collective what some used to refere to as the 5^th column, get bolder.
Their now at the point where they feel they really can pull off just about anything they want to and never face criminal negligence. They being of course both those in government agencies as well as the L/MSM.
At least GWB has taken some steps to put a few people in place and give them a mission to start cleaning up these nests. How effective it will turn out. Who knows.

[doorgunner69]

I would still be peeking through bars at Leavenworth if I would have told what I knew when holding a Top Secret clearance.

Yep, having held a clearance of several levels with the alphabet after them, we know too well the penalties promised for compromise. You WILL go to jail. It is amazing how the MSM is glossing over this. Why don't they get a security officer from any large defense contractor on to tell just what the govenment promises will happen to someone divulging classified information????

[jazusamo]

I would consider it the highest honor to be selected to serve my country as a volunteer on Mary McCarthy's firing squad.

And so would I. The people coming forward to try to justify her actions are just as bad, IMO.

BTW, thanks to your help, I'm starting to learn some of this puter language stuff. I don't understand it but I can remember some of the things to put in.

:-)

[Verginius Rufus]

The media believes in a higher loyalty to the socialist revolution. Nothing is treasonous if it advances socialism or the Democratic party, or hurts the Republican party, the so-called Christian right, or George W. Bush.

If McCarthy is prosecuted and found guilty of treason, as she should be, she'll be pardoned by the next 'Rat President.

If The New York Times had been around in 1780, they would have made a hero of Benedict Arnold.

[tennmountainman]

10-1 Odds that Bush's Justice department will give her the same treatment as Burglar... nothing but a slap on the wrist.
After all she did lose her job.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

Treason.
One of the liberal pundits this week end angrily described the issue as the Bush administration snuffing the media's God given right to publish the nation's top secrets .

[PogySailor]

Sadly, I expect the only place she'll be going anytime soon is the lefty talk show and speaking circuit. The MSM is already making the case that she was right to divulge TS/SCI information.