Here’s a question. Say you are an editor at the Washington Post. You plan to publish a story this morning headlined “Little Is Clear in Laws on Leaks; Statutes Regarding Classified Data Called Hard to Prosecute.” Your reporter, Dan Eggen, writes that the Mary McCarthy case has “focused attention on the patchwork of federal laws that govern disclosures of classified information, which are written broadly but are difficult to enforce and have historically been used sparingly in cases involving journalists.” Eggen cites experts on national security who warn that, while McCarthy could conceivably be prosecuted under several different laws, “any such prosecution is fraught with obstacles, including the difficulty in showing that disclosures were made with knowledge that they would harm national security or were intended to benefit a foreign power.” Eggen discusses the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and the Espionage Act and cites the CIA “secret prisons” story, the NSA warrantless wiretap story, the Lawrence Franklin case, and the Samuel Morison case.
Fine. So here’s the question. Do you, as an editor of the Washington Post, suggest that Eggen perhaps include a discussion of the most extensive leak prosecution in memory, one that has gone on for two and a half years so far, has brought top White House officials before a grand jury, has resulted in the perjury indictment of one of them, and has led to the jailing of one reporter and threats to jail others — all based, at least initially, on the very laws Eggen analyzed? (And, by the way, dramatically illustrating, as perhaps no other case has, the difficulties of prosecuting under those laws.) So do you suggest that maybe a story headlined “Little Is Clear in Laws on Leaks; Statutes Regarding Classified Data Called Hard to Prosecute” include a mention of the Plame/Fitzgerald CIA leak case?
No.