It all depends on what you leak.

C.I.R. Press Editorial

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rarely… I mean rarely do I ever encourage the United States of America to take a path in changing our ways based on another countries. However, I have found one that we should. We already have non-disclosure agreements you must sign when dealing with classified information. But I’d like a few people to look at the Official Secrets Act 1989 of England.

While much of it is very similar to our laws and regulations currently in effect, there are some quick points I want to highlight:

“[2](2) For the purposes of subsection (1) above a disclosure is damaging if… (c) it is of information or of a document or article which is such that its unauthorised disclosure would be likely to have any of those effects.”

“[3](5) In this section "international relations" means the relations between States, between international organisations or between one or more States and one or more such organisations and includes any matter relating to a State other than the United Kingdom or to an international organisation which is capable of affecting the relations of the United Kingdom with another State or with an international organisation.
(6) For the purposes of this section any information, document or article obtained from a State or organisation is confidential at any time while the terms on which it was obtained require it to be held in confidence or while the circumstances in which it was obtained make it reasonable for the State or organisation to expect that it would be so held.”

The revised version repealed the use of “national or public interest” as a defense for releasing such information. I am sorry but I am sick of story after story coming up and being published. It only gives information to the enemy and certainly makes other countries wary of working with us on top level security issues. What is the lefts response, “we need more oversight.” I am fine with oversight, but the problem is that they seem to think that oversight means gaining information that they can use in press conferences to trash efforts made to fight this war. If they could keep their mouth shut and do the oversight behind closed doors… fine, that is how they should do it.

Don’t worry, my anger is not only towards the left and the press. I certainly believe they are being irresponsible, but they are being irresponsible with information given to them from a source with privileged information. Why are we not nailing the people revealing this information? I just don’t understand it. It is nice to talk about “going after leakers” but how about the DoJ actually do it?

We should track down leakers giving out classified information like candy on Halloween, but we get talk. But you get someone stealing the recipe for Coke, and you get nailed to the wall? Corporate espionage is a high priority for the courts, REAL espionage… not so much.

-md