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Politico...
Despite openness
pledge, President Obama pursues leakers
By Josh Gerstein
3/7/11
The Obama administration, which famously pledged to be the most
transparent in American history, is pursuing an unexpectedly aggressive
legal offensive against federal workers who leak secret information to
expose wrongdoing, highlight national security threats or pursue a
personal agenda.
In just over two years since President Barack Obama took office,
prosecutors have filed criminal charges in five separate cases
involving unauthorized distribution of classified national security
information to the media. And the government is now mulling what would
be the most high-profile case of them all - prosecuting WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange.
That’s a sharp break from recent history, when the U.S. government
brought such cases on three occasions in roughly 40 years.
The government insists it’s only pursuing individuals who act with
reckless disregard for national security, and that it has an obligation
to protect the nation’s most sensitive secrets from being revealed.
Anyone seeking to expose malfeasance has ample opportunity to do so
through proper channels, government lawyers say.
But legal experts and good-government advocates say the hard-line
approach to leaks has a chilling effect on whistleblowers, who fear
harsh legal reprisals if they dare to speak up.
Not only that, these advocates say, it runs counter to Obama’s pledges
of openness by making it a crime to shine a light on the inner workings
of government – especially when there are measures that could protect
the nation’s interests without hauling journalists into court and
government officials off to jail.
“It is not to me a good sign when government chooses to go after
leakers using the full force of criminal law when there are other ways
to handle these situations,” said Jane Kirtley, a University of
Minnesota law professor and former executive director of the Reporters
Committee for Freedom of the Press. “Of course, the government has to
have some kind of remedy, [but] I’d certainly hope they’re being very
selective about these prosecutions.”
Jesselyn Radack, a former Justice Department attorney now with the
Government Accountability Project, said it’s “very destructive and
damaging to be going after people for leaks that embarrass the
government.” The policy, she said, is “a disturbing one particularly
from a president who got elected pledging openness and transparency —
and someone who also got elected thanks to a lot of [Bush-era] scandals
that were revealed by whistleblowers.”
Read the entire story at Politico
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