04 March, 2013

Why the government won't prosecute me - The Week

Why the government won't prosecute me - The Week: The government has a funny relationship with secrets. At the level of policy, it almost facilitates leaks of classified information. Political appointees, senior government civilian executives, generals, and admirals leak in a permissive environment. Only views that are at odds with the administration's are punished. Leakers rarely are. In fact, the government does not do the one thing that it could to easily crack down on high-level national security policy leaks: It does not prosecute the distributors.

I am a distributor. I've just published a book that, I am led to believe, contains classified information. Now, perhaps an agency will ask the DOJ to investigate the source of a leak to me, the one-to-one channel of information. But unless, for the sake of kicks, the government decides to be bold, they will not prosecute me.