Those who leak classified data should be punished.

This will be my second contribution on ATS within 48 hours involving the DNI, wanted to post both closer together, but only so much time and not enough of it to go around. Any how, I thought long and hard about which forum this would best fit in.

To me it looks like both, "Disinformation" in as much that they are telling the reader one thing, while behind the scenes still doing what they are insinuating as bad. "Deflection" because they make the journalists out to be the bad guy, when it should be the one who leaked to the "reporter" aka one who reports, isn't the source the one who should get in trouble?

Come on, don't tell some one you know whose job it is to blab every thig they hear to any one who will be an audience.

So who is guily, the orgininal leak, or the paid professional whos career depends on getting the word out. Sure, the journalist could hold the info back until a predeterminined time and date of release, but how obligated are they. Shouldn't the source of the leak consider the fact of a dead drop to store the data until conditions meet for it to be known?

It's not hard, people just need to use more common sence, and read between the lines.

The following Op-Ed by the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, was published in USA TODAY on Monday, July 28, 2008:

Bill wrongly shields press

Those who leak classified data should be punished.

By Mike McConnell – USA TODAY

The Senate is considering a proposal that would bestow a "privilege" on reporters, shielding them from revealing confidential sources of important national security information, even when their sources have broken the law by disclosing classified information. The intelligence community recognizes the critical role that the news media plays in our democratic society. However, this bill would upset the balance established by current law, crippling the government's ability to investigate and prosecute those who harm national security.

I have joined the attorney general, the secretaries of Defense, Energy, Homeland Security and Treasury, and every senior intelligence community leader in expressing the belief, based on decades of experience, that this bill will gravely damage our ability to protect national security information. Unauthorized disclosure of classified information disrupts our efforts to track terrorists, jeopardizes the lives of intelligence and military personnel and inhibits international cooperation critical to detecting and preventing threats. Those who illegally disclose information recklessly risk our national security and breach a sacred public trust.

It is a delicate balance to protect national security information from improper disclosure, while respecting the rights of the press to publish information it deems of public interest. This legislation upsets that balance by shielding those who illegally leak national security information and increasing the likelihood of destructive revelations in the future. The bill forces the government to meet ill-defined standards that require the disclosure of additional sensitive information. It also cedes critical judgments about harm to national security from national security professionals, charged with protecting the country, to the subjective determination of individual judges.

We do not see the problem that this bill is meant to address. All evidence indicates that the free flow of information has continued unabated in the absence of a federal reporter's privilege. Indeed, prosecutions in this area are exceedingly rare, and the longstanding policy of the Department of Justice strictly limits circumstances in which prosecutors may seek information from journalists. We must retain the ability to bring to justice those who break the law and cause irreparable harm to the United States and its citizens.

Bill wrongly shields press

It's our government(At least on paper.). By what right do they withhold information from the people they are SERVING.

Vas

See I don't have any problem with them punishing someone who sells nuclear secrets to china etc.Military things NEED to be classified.
But I just don't see what gives them the right to say, that all that goes on in space and the whole earths sky's is solely a military classified subject.
They just don't have the right and its only stupid people who allow them to have it.
UFO's ET's whatever else is everyones business, not just the government.
How dare they think they can control what people know about the earth they live on.
When I seen Cheney say UFO's would be classified and he cant talk about it I felt like smashing him in the teeth.Maybe one day ill get to do that.