National Security Leaks

    A national security leak is a revealing of confidential information, which can be of value to an enemy or potential enemy, by a person or persons, usually in the government. An example is the suspected transmission of technical atomic bomb information to the Soviet Union, which allowed them to quickly develop their own device.
    The Espionage Act became law in 1917 and has undergone various modifications. Present application is covered by United States Code, which is a codified collection of federal legislation of the United States.
    Within the Code, Title 18 covers Crimes and Criminal Procedure. Sequentially:
    Chapter 37 covers Espionage and Censorship.
    Paragraph 793 covers Gathering, Transmitting or Losing Defense Information.
    Parts a through f cover the specifics of which confidential security information can be leaked to an enemy or potential enemy of the US. All of these involve a penalty of fine and/or imprisonment of not more than 10 years.

    Federal laws are prosecuted by the Justice Department, of which Eric Holder is the Attorney General. There are so many laws on the books, that is essentially impossible for the Justice Department to prosecute all suspected violators. However, it is obvious that some laws are more important to the well-being of the US than others, and I believe national security can be placed in that category.
    While that is my belief, government apparently has a different view. Eric Holder operates at the "pleasure" of Pres. Obama. We've seen a number of situations, where the average person would consider an obvious prosecution, but where the President/Atty. Gen. have decided to take no action.
    With that background, let's see what anonymous CJ has to say on the subject of National Security Leaks.

    "There have been serious leaks in our national security system. Now, one of the Navy Seals that participated in the killing of Osama bin Laden has taken the unprecedented step of coming forward with his version of what happened. This was certainly prompted by the leakage from somewhere in high places in our federal government of very secret security information.
    The first leak revealed many of the details of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. Perhaps as a result, the physician, who was invaluable in showing our intelligence agencies that the person hiding out was truly bin Laden, is now serving a long sentence in a Pakistani prison.
    The second leak was even more serious. In that case, our secret collaboration with the Israelis in developing a virus that invaded the Iran nuclear program and caused their centrifuges to malfunction was revealed. Now that Iran is aware of that program, they have certainly taken steps to remove the virus from their operating systems.
    It now appears that there is a carefully guarded cover-up going on with the Justice Department very slowly investigating this leak. One would think that, since the information that was leaked was known to only a few in the federal government, it would be relatively straightforward to identify the several individuals who might have been the leakers.
    These are critical security breaches and should be pursued with alacrity. However, the Justice Department appears to be moving extremely slowly. It is now expected that their report will not be available until after the November elections.
    It sounds fishy to me. How about you?"