Just Because Its Secret Doesn't Make It Legal

Well, we all knew it was coming.

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified information about President Bush's secret domestic spying program. The inquiry focuses on disclosures to The New York Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials said.

And you can just tell that there's going to be a slant on fair and due process:

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Justice undertook the action on its own, and the president was informed of it on Friday.
"The leaking of classified information is a serious issue. The fact is that al-Qaida's playbook is not printed on Page One and when America's is, it has serious ramifications," Duffy told reporters in Crawford, Texas, where Bush was spending the holidays.

Only the Bush team and its sycophants are still attempting to defend the spying on American citizens that is the first cause of the leaks. Everyone else, including the FISA Court and Congressional leaders thinks what Bush authorized was illegal. So what was a concerned US citizen who became aware of these seemingly criminal acts by the administration to do about it?

Well, The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has this to say about such matters when they involve national intelligence operations.

For disclosures of information involving counterintelligence and foreign intelligence information the statute sets forth a different procedure under 5 U.S.C. § 1213(j). If the Special Counsel determines that a disclosure involves counterintelligence or foreign intelligence information, which is prohibited from disclosure by law or Executive order, the disclosure will be transmitted to the National Security Advisor, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the House and Select Committee on Intelligence in the Senate. 5 U.S.C. § 1213(j). The referral ends the Special Counsel’s involvement with the disclosure and the National Security Advisor and the Congressional intelligence committees decide how to proceed with the information. The disclosure will not be referred to the head of the agency involved for an investigation.

Given that the director of the NSA and the Chairs of both committees are likely complicit henchlings of the alleged instigator and ringleader of this criminality, it would hardly give a prospective whistleblower a warm fuzzy feeling, now would it?

So the whistleblowers decided to go above the heads of all those who may be complicit in breaking the law to their ultimate boss - the American People. They did this by talking to one of the traditional channels for doing so, an organ of the free press of the United States. They should be given medals, not subjected to a travesty of justice.

The same goes for the law-abiding whistleblowers who have spoken to the American People through the press about other illegal actions such as renditions for torture and secret prisons abroad by the CIA.