Leaker or Whistleblower?
by stacyb

It would seem that there is a lot of talk these days about intelligence leaks and there appears to be little consistency with regard to how the leaks are handled, either politically or legally.

Taylor Marsh, writing over at Firedoglake, takes on this issue and questions why there seem to be different standards depending on who is doing the leaking:

Okay, let me get this straight. The Leaker in Chief, George W. Bush, can leak information to Lewis Libby, with no repercussions whatsoever. Deadeye can do the same. But a whistleblower, a member of the CIA's Inspector General's office, leaks the existence of illegal black sites to a reporter, because she feels something wrong is being done in the name of the American people, and she gets fired. Not only fired, but pulled out and identified as nothing short of a traitor.

In other words, the Nixon rule really does apply. If the president does it it's okay, but if it's done by a whistleblower she gets fired, with humiliation and the "traitor" tag waiting for her on her departure. Even people who don't like Mary McCarthy are saying something smells.

Ms. Marsh is referring specifically to the revelation that a high-level intelligence officer has been fired by the CIA for giving information to the Washington Post's Dana Priest about the U.S. Government's secret prisons, or black sites, as they are also known.

Ms. McCarthy, the CIA official in question, was likely fired for violating the terms of a contract she signed which stipulated she would not disclose any intelligence information to outside sources. However, there is the question of when a leak is more than a leak and when does the person become a whistleblower who actually is performing a service to the community (or nation) by disclosing government wrongdoing? Think Deep Throat.

There are laws that protect whistleblowers in certain circumstances but where intelligence is concerned, it gets more tricky.

And speaking of intelligence leaks, here's another allegation that will soon light up the blogosphere like the NY skyline during a lightening storm:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist's lawyer said Friday

[snip]

The allegations against Rice came as a federal judge granted a defense request to issue subpoenas sought by the defense for Rice and three other government officials in the trial of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. The two are former lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are charged with receiving and disclosing national defense information.

The question is, what happens when our government officials selectively leak intelligence information for political purposes? Do the same legal rules apply? Can they be "fired" like Ms. McCarthy was? Or is it yet another executive privilege being exercised?

Stay tuned...

Submitted by stacyb (view blog) on Sat, 04/22/2006 - 12:33
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More leaks

For an excellent discussion of national security information being leaked to the media, go here. It puts things in perspective.

***
Contributing Editor, Law Blogs
Cafe Politico

Submitted by stacyb on Sun, 04/23/2006 - 13:59
 

whistleblowers

I would like to point out several factors that tie into whether a person is perceived as a whistleblower:

1) If the person can't afford a lawyer, they may not be able to successfully be able to invoke the whistleblower protections that exist.

2) Corporations have "ins" and existing relationships with government agencies that regular citizens don't have. Thus corporations can work these connections (in combination with a PR assault) to dupe government agencies into making a public pronouncement against a potentially "dangerous" person before they've done an investigation. Then when they do the investigation and discover they jumped the gun, the government agency has more of a vested interest in covering their own ass (refusing to apologize for their mistake) then addressing the damage they did to the whistleblower. By the way there is ZERO public outrage about illegal government actions on these occasions.

3) The press may decide it would be a better story to make the whistleblower look like a threat to good society: for instance, they can focus on whether the whistleblower was a "disgruntled" former employee, or in the initial confusion (created by corporate PR), they can paint the whistleblower as a potential hacker, a data thief, or a threat to "privacy" (or some other hot button issue). By the time the truth comes up, the media cycle is over.

There needs to be stronger protection for whistleblowers in the U.S. At the moment whistleblower protections are socked away in the rules governing particular government agencies. Furthermore, there should be free and lowcost legal services dedicated to whistleblowers who aren't from the top of the food chain.

Submitted by pansophia on Sun, 04/23/2006 - 16:01
 

good points

Pansophia- good points and in the current situation(s) I think the media has played a HUGE role in whether or not the people are seen as whistleblowers or leakers. Generally, when someone works for a company/agency and uncovers wrongdoing on the part of that company, they fall into the whistleblower category and there are some protections for those people but you are right, they need to get legal help. But prior to that, the media or the company itself may be invested in trying to paint the person as "disgruntled" or trying to promote themselves and get publicity.

Under Bush, we have taken steps backwards in terms of putting in place protections for whistleblowers in both the private sector and the public sector, even despite high profile cases like Enron and Tyco.

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Contributing Editor, Law Blogs
Cafe Politico

Submitted by stacyb on Mon, 04/24/2006 - 12:49
 

I was just going to add a

I was just going to add a bit about Mary McCarthy to my blog, and I noticed that *several* of the top slots on Google News belonged to Rush Limbaugh. There's clearly a campaign to dilute the public perception that McCarthy is a whistleblower.

I think there's a lingering perception that the media is a balancing "third force" that will protect people against corporate and government misdeeds. Whenever people feel they've been wronged, the first thing they do is cry out that they will go to the press. However, now the media is so entangled with the PR industry (hired by corporations and utilized heavily by the Bush administration), the "third force" is no longer there. We're going through a really sad period right now where victims of the abuse of power are falling through the cracks between the public's "third force" assumption, and the reality of the rich and powerful operating above the law because they've succeeded in buying off the media.

Ps. Your blog post comes up near the top of Google News, as well. Congratulations!

Submitted by pansophia on Tue, 04/25/2006 - 09:25
 

media

Pansophia- I agree about the media. Instead of speaking truth to power and acting as the Fourth Estate they are now the people that parrot the talking points of the powerful. It's hardly a check and balance anymore.

***
Contributing Editor, Law Blogs
Cafe Politico

Submitted by stacyb on Wed, 04/26/2006 - 13:10
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