Following the revelation in The New York and Los angeles Times that the U.S. Treasury Department was successfully tracking the movement of money to fund al Qaeda's activities around the world, Senator Pat Roberts (R. Kansas) and Congressman Pete King (R. New York) called for some extraordinary measures to deal with the problem of press leaks that may damage national Security.
Congressman King, who chairs the Congressional Homeland Security Committee, is outraged that The New York Times printed the story about the Treasury Department's activities. "We're at war," King fumed. "and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous," He claims the paper was "more concerned about a left-wing elitist agenda than it is about the security of the american people."
But that's not all. King wants the Times, the reporters who filed the story and the editors to be charged with treason.
In what appears to be a move supporting King's call for an indictment, Senator Pat Roberts, who is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has written a letter to John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence to perform an assessment of the possible damage caused by the Time's revelations. In his letter to Negroponte, Senator Roberts wrote:
"Unauthorized disclosures of classified information continue to threaten our national security — exposing our sensitive intelligence sources and methods to our enemies. Numerous, recent unauthorized disclosures of sensitive intelligence programs have directly threatened important efforts in the war against terrorism. Whether the President's Terrorist Surveillance Program or the Department of Treasury's effort to track terrorist financing, we have been unable to persuade the media to act responsibly and protect the means by which we protect this nation.
"To gain a better understanding of the damage caused by unauthorized disclosures of this type, I ask that you perform an assessment of the damage caused by the unauthorized disclosure of some of our most sensitive intelligence programs. While your assessment may range beyond the President's Terrorist Surveillance Program and Treasury's Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, I am particularly interested in the damage attributable to these two unauthorized disclosures."
Charging news outlets that uncover and reveal sensitive government information with treason is going too far. First of all, it is incumbent on the government to ensure that top-secret programs are kept top secret and if anyone should be prosecuted for treason it is the government employee who leaked the information in the first place. The leaker, who would require an appropriate "eyes only" clearance to be in possession of this information in the first place, is definitely culpable in that having a security clearance at that level has certain penalties attached to being in breach. The New York Times on the other hand has no such clearance and is not bound by the provisions of high-level secret clearances.
Second, in order to successfully prosecute for treason, the government must show intent. While I am probably the Time's most strident critic, I hardly believe that the intent of their running this article was to damage the security of the United States. I believe their motives were likely a lot more mundane, as in getting a scoop or embarrassing the cowboy in the White House.
If the Times and other news outlets that featured the story are prosecuted, then the First amendment of the Constitution of the United States will, in effect be scrapped. We should all take solace in the fact that we do not have to prosecute the former mainstream media for their indiscretions, as their audience has already passed judgment and is deserting them in droves. Perhaps the most apt punishment for news organs such as the New York and Los angeles Times is that instead of going to jail, their writers and editors will eventually be joining the ranks of the unemployed as losing readers translates into fewer advertising dollars, which means less revenue and less revenue means laying off employees.
If we were to punish the media with legal sanctions, we would be no better than the terrorists who want to destroy our way of life. Losing readers is far more devastating than a jail sentence.
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