WHAT THE PENTAGON-AIPAC LEAK CASE TELLS US ABOUT THE NSA-NYTIMES LEAK CASE

THE AMERICAN THINKER:

Last Friday, US District Judge T. S. Ellis III sentenced Pentagon employee Larry Franklin to just over 12 years in prison for his role in providing classified Department of Defense documents to two former employees of AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee), Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, and to a diplomat, Naor Gilon of Israel. [...]

The two former AIPAC employees are facing jail time for talking to reporters, revealing classified information, and for revealing secrets to a friendly country. In the NSA/New York Times case, one of the recipients of the information the New York Times disseminated is al Qaeda, which now knows of the surveillance effort and is better able to evade detection of its communications. Providing relevant secrets that aid an enemy in time of war is no laughing matter, and a legal precedent exists for prison sentences of non-trivial duration for those who are found guilty. [...]

The NSA disclosure is a far more serious affair than the Franklin/Rosen/Weissman story, or the Plame/Wilson story, that kept the chattering crowd in DC on their toes for more than a year. If one follows the logic of Judge Ellis, it is hard to see how James Risen, Bill Keller, and possibly Pinch Sulzberger will not be asked to take a perp walk, mabye even in leg irons, some day soon.

The leakers of the "NSA's International al Qaeda Intercept Program" should be found, tried, convicted and executed for (a) VIOLATING THE 1998 Intelligence Whistleblower's Protection Act and (b) treason. THAT MEANS THE LEAKERS, AND PINCH AND BILL AND RISEN AND LICHTBLAU.