First and Hastert are reportedly about to open a leak investigation re: those CIA terror-suspect prisons Dana Priest reported on in the Washington Post late last month. Byron wrote on here; Bill Bennett here.
Byron asked:
The Post’s decision to publish the article raises several questions. Is the existence of the prisons classified information? If so, did a government official give that classified information to someone — a reporter, perhaps — who was not authorized to receive it, in possible violation of the 1917 Espionage Act? Did that official give other classified information to the paper which does not appear in the article, the disclosure of which might also constitute a violation of the Espionage Act? Should the Department of Justice open a criminal investigation of this matter? Should the president order government officials, including those at the CIA, to sign waivers releasing reporters from any pledges of confidentiality made in the reporting of this story? Should Dana Priest or other journalists be forced by a court to reveal the content of their discussions with confidential sources? In the not-too-distant past, none of these questions would be particularly urgent. Now, in the post-Plame world, they are.