UNITED STATES
Reuters
By John Lloyd December 1, 2015
Leaking is essential to journalism. It is the ethical problem at the heart of the trade — since much leaking depends on the leaker breaking a promise not to leak. The conundrum is “solved” by appealing to the higher cause of holding power to account.
That rationale can vary from having the force of exposing official lies or corporate fraud to the grubbiness of publishing details, usually sexual, of the private life of well-known people. But leaking is especially essential in the coverage of the intelligence services, and of the way in which security in the face of militant jihadism is administered. It’s necessary to get beyond bland statements and partial briefings, and get some purchase on the scope and methods of institutions now, in every state, much more powerful and much larger than they had been since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s.
The George W. Bush administrations were as angered as any before them by the leaking which surrounded their actions, especially in the second half of the 2000s. But, as reporters learned to their delight, the wars within it, in key departments like Justice and State as well as in the security services, meant that leakers had a large interest in getting their objections out, and in weakening opponents whom they thought wrong, or dangerous.
Under President Barack Obama, however, whose administration is more disciplined and which has been directed to go hard on leakers, the pickings — say reporters — are thinner, the penalties harsher. Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer who leaked material on Iran to New York Times reporter James Risen for his 2006 book State of War; John Kiriakou, also once with the CIA, who disclosed information about a brother officer to journalists; and Stephen Kim, a former State department expert, who gave details of contacts between the United States and North Korea to a Fox News reporter, have all served or are serving jail sentences for their acts.
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