2) The drama is unfolding as Congress debates whether to toughen anti-leak laws to crack down on classified information being provided to the news media. The Obama administration has responded by ordering that thousands of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement employees be questioned about media leaks when theyre polygraphed during security clearance screenings. In an unprecedented move, the administration also has criminally prosecuted numerous government employees for leaking. Whistleblower and media advocates fear that the aggressive efforts will have a chilling effect on the reporting of government wrongdoing but wont stop classified information from being leaked when its politically advantageous to administrations.
3) The attack on whistleblowing, by design, seriously impedes investigative reporting; as Jane Mayer put it recently: when our sources are prosecuted, the news-gathering process is criminalized, so its incumbent upon all journalists to speak up. Worse still, allowing the Executive Branch to leak at will information that glorifies the President and his policies, while aggressively suppressing all information that does the opposite, is the classic recipe for propagandizing without limit.