"Miss me yet?!!"
Posted on 05/25/2010 11:26:06 AM PDT by STARWISE
The Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks to the press has snared a high-profile conviction of an FBI linguist, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison Monday after pleading guilty to giving classified information to a blogger.
The sentence for Shamai Leibowitz is likely to become the longest ever served by a government employee accused of passing national security secrets to a member of the media. His case represents only the third known conviction in U.S. history for a government official or contractor providing classified information to the press.
And it reflects a surprising development: President Barack Obama’s Justice Department has taken a hard line against leakers, and Obama himself has expressed anger about disclosures of national security deliberations in the press.
“I think it’s remarkable,” said Gabriel Schoenfeld, a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute who urged prosecution of The New York Times for publishing details of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program in 2005. “This is the administration that came in pledging maximum transparency. Plugging leaks is ... traditionally not associated with openness.”
“They’re going after this at every opportunity and with unmatched vigor,” said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, a critic of government classification policy.
Last month, the Justice Department reissued a Bush-era grand jury subpoena against New York Times reporter James Risen for the sources he relied on in a chapter of his 2006 book, “State of War,” which focuses on a CIA-led ruse to disrupt Iranian nuclear weapons research. Risen has vowed to fight the subpoena but might face the possibility of jail time for contempt if a judge refuses to step in.
“I was extremely surprised that the Risen subpoena was reinstituted. That struck me as a battle that no one needed to have,” said Hearst Corp. general counsel Eve Burton, a veteran of legal battles over press sources. “I thought Eric Holder would be a more moderating force in that regard.”
The Justice Department also obtained an indictment last month of former National Security Agency official Thomas Drake in connection with leaks that apparently led to a Baltimore Sun series on alleged mismanagement of an NSA program to process large volumes of intercepted data. Drake has pleaded not guilty.
“If Thomas Drake is convicted and sentenced to jail, this will be the first president to send two leakers to prison in his term in office. That’s never happened before,” said Schoenfeld, author of the book “Necessary Secrets.” “You wouldn’t have expected the Holder Justice Department to be particularly hawkish in these matters.”
Rest @ link
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U.S. Orders Expanded Covert Military Action in Mideast
*snip*
Defense officials said that the policy change dates back to a directive Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, signed in September authorizing an expansion of clandestine military to counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and elsewhere in the Middle East region.
The New York Times first reported that Petraeus had authorized Special Operations forces to conduct surveillance missions in those countries.
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-0, as someone with no core American love or values, walks both sides of every issue, for purely political pandering and appeasement. Nothing like giving our beast enemies a heads up. Hang them all!
~~Ping!
Obama’s just upset he’s not leaking classified information first; he wants to be the one giving away all the secrets.
” President Barack Obama’s Consigliere Department has taken a hard line against leakers,
Not very bright Schoenfeld. When Obama very first act as the putative president was to sign an EO to hide behind, it should have gave you a big clue book writer.
You mean some trapped people want to actually tell the truth.
"Miss me yet?!!"
Zer0 will eventually overplay his hand and REALLY piss someone off. When that happens, the birds will be a singin.
Yup. Look what happened to that Lt. guy.
They have done Al Capone proud.
Cool, this will let the next president go after the leaks with abandon.
Goodbye, State Department!
>> Nixon
Good one!
Send a message to all Americans
“Power of the State, Power to the State”
This has a specific and important objective for the Obamanation: intimidate NOW all potential leakers who could arouse the public, investigations, etc. about myriad dishonest, incompetent, malicious, and/or ILLEGAL activities by Obamabots in the government.
Holder wants to use a couple of cases that don’t seem related to Obamanation policies in order to make all potential critics within the federal bureaucracies cower.
The Chicago Way!
Zero sending a message to the MSM not to ‘mess with him or else’. When are they going to wake up and smell the thugocracy?
Thanks for the ping.
Discouraging leaks isn’t about national security to the Zer0 comrades. If they were worried about national security, they would control the borders and quit spending the kind of money that would make a drunken sailor blush.
This is to hide what the rats and roaches are doing in the dark. It is all about power.
Hussein doesn’t want anybody TELLING on him!
crackdown on leaks to the press has snared a high-profile conviction of an FBI linguist, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison Monday after pleading guilty to giving classified information to a bloggerSo, when does the trial start for those who leaked the Seal Team info?
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