White House leaks geared to aiding a political campaign extremely stupid , hurts national security by displaying methods , opens up cyber warfare as an acceptable weapon any country could deploy , weakens relationships with allies and puts troops potentially at risk......

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/07/good_leak_bad_leak

Good Leak, Bad Leak

A look at the Obama administration's hot-and-cold approach to secrets.

BY URI FRIEDMAN | JUNE 8, 2012

There's something troubling about the recent leaks to the New York Times about President Barack Obama's involvement in authorizing the targeted killings of suspected terrorists andlaunching cyberattacks against an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility: they're coming from the same administration that has prosecuted more government officials under the Espionage Act of 1917 for sharing classified information with the media than all previous administrations combined. (As Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote in a 2010 memo, "People in the intelligence business should be like my grandchildren -- seen but not heard.") Just this week, an American general who suggested that U.S. and South Korean Special Forces were parachuting into North Korea to conduct espionage was replaced in what the military insisted, amid murmurs of disbelief, was a routine personnel change.

This contradictory posture toward national security leaks has exposed the White House to accusations this week that it clamps down on whistleblowing when the disclosures undermine its agenda but eagerly volunteers anonymous "senior administration officials" for interviews when politically expedient. Salon's Glenn Greenwaldcondemned the "administration's manipulative game-playing with its secrecy powers," the Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer called the report on Obama's targeted killings a "White House press release" (the report's authors dispute that claim), and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle decried the "accelerating pace of such disclosures," calling for an investigation and new legislation to address the problem. "They're intentionally leaking information to enhance President Obama's image as a tough guy for the elections," Senator John McCain (R-AZ) charged on Tuesday.

The White House, for its part, has dismissed this allegation as "grossly irresponsible" and argued that, in fact, it seeks to plug leaks that could jeopardize counterterrorism or intelligence operations. But as the examples below suggest, the Obama administration hardly has dealt consistently with counterterrorism and intelligence leaks over the past three-and-a-half years.

KILL LIST

Prosecution? No.

Leak: In late May, the New York Times, drawing on interviews with "three dozen of [Obama's] current and former advisers," reported that the president personally approves the names on a "kill list" of suspected terrorists, describing one scene in the White House Situation Room in which Obama pores over a chart of targets resembling a "high school yearbook." While the story cited several anonymous sources, the reporters also quoted aides such as National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon (pictured with Obama above) and Counterterrorism Adviser John Brennan directly. As Michael Cohen noted this week at Foreign Policy, the revelations may provide Obama with a political boost given that a whopping 83 percent of Americans approve of Obama's drone policy.

WIKILEAKS

Prosecution? Yes.

Leak: Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, is currently charged with aiding the enemy, among other counts, for working with WikiLeaks to orchestrate the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history -- one that included 250,000 diplomatic cables (many of which were deeply embarrassing for the United States, to say the least), tens of thousands of classified documents from Afghanistan, and a video of a U.S. helicopter strike killing unarmed civilians in Baghdad. This week, the judge in the case ordered the U.S. government to hand over its assessments of the damage that Manning, who faces life in prison if found guilty, caused to U.S. interests around the world.

STUXNET

Prosecution? No.

Leak: Last week, the New York Times reported that Obama has accelerated a campaign of cyberattacks known as "Olympic Games" against Iran, temporarily disabling 1,000 centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility (pictured above) through the Stuxnet computer worm. The reporting was based on "interviews over the past 18 months with current and former American, European and Israeli officials involved in the program, as well as a range of outside experts," none of whom were named. Some political observers suspect that the administration leaked these details to emphasize the president's aggressive action to prevent Iran -- the country that Americans feel poses thegreatest danger to the United States -- from acquiring nuclear weapons, particularly during an election year in which Mitt Romney has criticized Obama for being soft on Tehran.

TRAILBLAZER PROJECT

Prosecution? Yes.

Leak: In 2010, a senior National Security Agency employee named Thomas Drake was indicted for providing classified information to a Baltimore Sun reporter about a costly, invasive, and ultimately botched NSA technology program called Trailblazer -- charges that could have landed him 35 years in prison. Instead, Drake pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor (misuse of an agency computer) and served no prison time after the government refused to disclose details about the documents Drake allegedly leaked. At the sentencing, the judge called the Justice Department's handling of the case "unconscionable," noting that Drake had been through "four years of hell."

BIN LADEN RAID

Prosecution? No.

Leak: In the aftermath of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, anonymous U.S. officials talked to reporters about everything from the most minute details of the operation itself to the fake vaccination drive that the CIA set up in Abbottabad, Pakistan, to obtain DNA from the al Qaeda leader's family. In May, the government watchdog group Judicial Watch revealed that the CIA, the Pentagon, and the White House granted Hollywood filmmakers access to a Navy SEAL who was involved in planning the raid. Earlier this week, John McCain suggested that the administration's "flurry of anonymous boasting" about the bin Laden operation had outed Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani doctor who ran the CIA's vaccination program and was recently sentenced to 33 years in prison by a Pakistani court for high treason.

OPERATION MERLIN

Prosecution? Yes.

Leak: In 2011, a former CIA officer named Jeffrey Sterling was arrested for disclosing classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen (shown above) about Operation Merlin, a failed CIA effort to undermine Iran's nuclear program, which Risen used in his 2006 book State of War. Later in 2011, Risen fought a subpoena to testify at Sterling's trial in what he characterized as a defense of "the First Amendment and freedom of the press." A federal appeals court panel is still deciding whether Risen should be forced to testify, as Sterling's trial hangs in the balance. "Sanger writes on successful Iranian operation, gets wide access," AP reporter Matt Apuzzo tweeted last week, in reference to David Sanger's recent articles in the New York Times on Obama's cyberattacks against Iran. "Risen writes on botched Iranian operation, gets subpoenaed."

AWLAKI MEMO

Prosecution? No.

Leak: When the American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (pictured above) was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen last September, political leaders and legal scholars demanded that the Obama administration release a declassified version of the Justice Department memo that provided the legal rationale for killing a U.S. citizen without a trial. (For what it's worth, most Americansapprove of strikes against suspected terrorists, even if they are American citizens.) It wasn't long before the contents of the memo were leaked to the New York Times -- an action Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith, in an article for Foreign Policy, described as an attempt by the executive branch to "have its cake (not talking about the [drone] program to serve diplomatic interests and perhaps deflect scrutiny) and eat it too (leaking to get credit for the operation and portray it as lawful)." Another law professor, Kenneth Anderson, accused the administration of "conducting the foreign policy of the U.S. by leaked journalism."

TERRORIST INTERROGATION

Prosecution? Yes.

Leak: In January, the Justice Department charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou with leaking classified information to journalists about the identity of a CIA analyst who participated in 2002 detention and interrogation of al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah  (Kiriakou also gave an interview toABC News in 2007 in which he described waterboarding as torture). A month later, when White House press secretary Jay Carney noted that three Western journalists had died while trying to illuminate the "truth" about the bloodshed in Syria, Jake Tapper of ABC News asked Carney how his praise for "aggressive journalism abroad" squared with the administration's attempts to "stop aggressive journalism in the United States by using the Espionage Act to take whistleblowers to court."

Carney sidestepped the question, noting that the cases Tapper was referring to involved "highly sensitive, classified information," and returned to the brave journalists in Syria. "I particularly appreciate what they did to bring that story to the American people," he explained.

Administration officials, of course, have at times brought highly sensitive, classified stories to the American people -- when they had good stories to tell, that is.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/09/wh-scrambles-on-leaks-after-press-conference/

WH scrambles on leaks after press conference

POSTED AT 9:31 AM ON JUNE 9, 2012 BY ED MORRISSEY

 

Looks like Barack Obama’s statement on the private sector doing “fine” wasn’t the only booby trap from his press conference yesterday.  Asked during the morning event about the series of leaks from his administration and their oh-so-coincidentally complimentary view of his own leadership, Obama pronounced himself offended by the insinuation that his team would leak sensitive information in an election year to save their jobs:

Later that evening, however, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice had opened an investigation into these very leaks:

Attorney General Eric Holder said on Friday he had assigned two U.S. attorneys to lead investigations into the possible leaking of state secrets.

“The unauthorized disclosure of classified information can compromise the security of this country and all Americans, and it will not be tolerated,” he said in a statement.

Holder assigned U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald C. Machen Jr., a Democratic appointee, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein, a holdover GOP appointee, to lead the investigations.

“These two highly respected and experienced prosecutors will be directing separate investigations currently being conducted by the FBI. I have every confidence in their abilities to doggedly follow the facts and the evidence in the pursuit of justice wherever it leads,” said Holder.

This looks like a compromise between an internal DoJ probe and the appointment of a special prosecutor.  Obama and the White House had rejected the appointment of the latter just a day earlier, but the rising bipartisan anger — and then the press interest in it — clearly forced their hand.  While Democrats objected to the Republicans’ accusation of political motivation behind the leaks, everyone on Capitol Hill was outraged by the leaks themselves, and refusing to investigate it at all was simply not an option after yesterday’s presser.

I’m no fan of special prosecutors; the mechanism almost always produces a prosecutor running amok, looking for any crime to justify the continuing probe, without any effective oversight or accountability.  That’s true in Republican and Democratic administrations.  The Department of Justice should normally conduct its own investigations and ensure that the investigations don’t run far afield from their mandate and the purported crime that required the probe in the first place.  In Holder’s DoJ, however, there is little confidence that they have the integrity and competence to investigate this issue, after the serial misrepresentations made to Congress by Holder himself and his deputies in the Fast and Furious probe.  This choice, to have two competing probes by US Attorneys appointed by different Presidents, looks like a good compromise.

That should not keep Congress from conducting its own investigation, however.  The DoJ is part of the executive branch, and it’s Congress’ duty to ensure that the executive branch hasn’t indulged in corruption or worse in pursuit of its own power.  The Senate and the House could follow up on Holder’s actions by appointing ad hoc bipartisan panels of inquiry into White House leaks, or perhaps form a joint committee where Republicans in the House balance out Democrats in the Senate.

Clearly, that’s what Holder’s announcement is intended to prevent.  It shows that the White House may be hitting the panic button over more than just a revealing remark about Obama’s cluelessness on economics.

and.....



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/07/congressional-committee-legislation-leaks

Senators plan legal crackdown on Obama administration leaks

White House faces accusations it endangered American lives by leaking information that would show the president as powerful

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• Chris McGreal in Washington
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 June 2012 16.28 EDT

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein flanked by Saxby Chambliss and House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

The heads of Congressional intelligence committees say they will pass new laws to prevent leaks of highly classified information as the White House fends off accusations that it has endangered American lives by releasing secrets to make the president appear strong.

The FBI is already investigating the source of a story in the New York Times about the joint US-Israeli assault on Iran's nuclear programme, codenamed Olympic Games, using a computer virus known as Stuxnet, and revelations about a CIA sting operation in Yemen that blocked an attempt to blow up a transatlantic flight.

Senator John McCain, the highest ranking Republican on the armed services committee, has called for a special counsel to investigate those leaks and the origins of another New York Times story about Obama's close involvement in deciding a "kill list" of targets of drone strikes in Pakistan.

The chairs of the Senate and House of Representative intelligence committees, Dianne Feinstein and Mike Rogers, said on Thursday that leaks "jeopardise American lives" and that they will write legislation to curb unauthorised disclosures by limiting the number of people who have access to classified information.

McCain has accused the White House of "an intentional breach" intended to "paint a portrait of the president of the United States as a strong leader on national security issues" in the run up to November's election. He said the revelations endanger American lives.

"These leaks clearly were not done in the interest of national security or to reveal corrupt or illegal actions about which the public has a right to know, as in the case of legitimate whistle-blowers," McCain said on Thursday. "It is difficult to escape the conclusion that these recent leaks of highly classified information, all of which have the effect of making the president look strong and decisive on national security in the middle of his re-election campaign, have a deeper political motivation."

Another Republican senator, Lindsey Graham, agreed.

"I don't think you have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what is going on here. You've had three leaks of intelligence that paint the president as a strong leader," he told Fox News.

However others did not go that far. Rogers said he was not prepared to accuse the White House.

"I don't think we ought to make that determination," he said.

But Rogers said there should be an independent probe because it "appears sources of these leaks could be in position to influence these investigations".

There has also been strong criticism from leading Democrats, including Feinstein although she too does not say the leaks were politically motivated on behalf of the president.

"It's very, very disturbing. You know, it's dismayed our allies. It puts American lives in jeopardy. It puts our nation's security in jeopardy," she said. "When people say they don't want to work with the United States because they can't trust us to keep a secret, that's serious."

The senators were to hold meetings with the heads of the FBI and national intelligence on Thursday to discuss the leaks.

The White House has denied feeding classified information to reporters.
"Any suggestion that this administration has authorised intentional leaks of classified information for political gain is grossly irresponsible," said Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney.

Suspicion has fallen on the administration because of the level of detail in the accounts that could only have come from senior officials in the know, particularly about the president's role in deciding who should be on the "kill list" for drone strikes.

Peter King, head of the House of Representatives homeland security committee, said the evidence points to information released at the highest level.

"You're talking about conversations among very small numbers of people in the Oval Office or in the national security council in the Situation Room," he told CNN. "We're talking about the people closest to the president. This isn't a big political gathering. We're talking about people with top secret clearances and it should be easy enough to find out who was at these meetings."

However, the investigation itself may amount to little more than an attempt to embarrass the president. If the information came from officials with White House approval then it would not be illegal.

Dean Baquet, managing editor of the New York Times, has defended the stories in the face of Congressional criticism that it has been a party to White House political manipulation. He said the rise in the use of drones and the increased use of cyber warfare should be part of a national debate. Baquet questioned whether politicians were missing the point in focussing on the leaks instead of the substance of the information that has been revealed.

"I wonder if only Washington is having the debate about [the stories'] timing, as opposed to what they actually said," he told the Huffington Post.