Another development in the Obama administration’s unprecedented efforts to criminalize the leaking of information to the press: Politico‘s Josh Gerstein (5/24/10) reports that a former FBI contractor was given a 20-month sentence for giving five classified documents to a blog. The former contractor, Shamai Leibowitz, said he wanted to expose activity he believed was illegal. “This was a one-time mistake that happened to me when I worked at the FBI and saw things that I considered a violation of the law,” he told the court as he received his sentence as part of a plea bargain.
Were, in fact, illegal activities going on at the FBI whose disclosure might benefit the public? It’s not clear–including to the judge handing down the sentence, who did not review the classified documents. “I don’t know what was divulged, other than some documents,” U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Williams Jr. declared, but he said “it had to be” a “very, very serious offense” because the Justice Department was initially seeking a 46-to-57-month sentence.
Judging the severity of a crime based on the degree of outrage of the prosecutor places an unwarranted trust in government authorities. Likewise, the assumption that everything the government declares to be a secret is properly so classified and therefore none of the public’s business is a lot to take on faith. Before sending an investigative reporter’s source to prison, surely it’s worth spending a few moments to determine what exactly they’re being sent to prison for.
Releasing ANY classified document to an unauthorized party is a violation of U.S. Code (federal law). And while there’s the possibility that the judge didn’t review the documents (very unlikely) they would have been reviewed in the Pre-Sentencing Investigation report.
Many of us can remember the release (under the FOIA and during Congressional investigations) of government files (FBI, CIA, etc) in the 1970’s, where items were just routinely stamped ‘Top Secret’ before they were put into the folder. Those items even included NEWSPAPER clippings, so one doesn’t have to be an anarchist or free-speech absolutist to know that the US government/military ‘over-classifies’ it’s files to prevent mere embarrassment as opposed to ‘national security’ interests (however indeterminate they might be). It’s an easy way to discourage ANY questions — to simply deem documents ‘Classified’ reflexively and then accuse anyone who dares to reveal mundane info from them as a traitor/lawbreaker/treasonous individual.
There is a system set up if an individual really thinks the action by the FBI was unlawful. It doesn’t have to be leaked to the Press or a blogger which is what he did. For “Classified” info he could have gone the established route for Whistleblower protection:
1. First, he must report the abuse to the Inspector General of the Department of Justice.
2. Within 14 days, the Inspector General must determine if the complaint appears credible and if so, he must transmit the complaint to the Director of the FBI.
3. Within 7 days, the Director must forward the complaint to the intelligence committees of Congress (Senate and House) together with his comments.
4. If the Inspector General fails to transmit the complaint, or does not transmit it in accurate form, the employee or contractor may submit the complaint to Congress by contacting either or both of the intelligence committees directly (after obtaining directions on the appropriate security practices).
I got this info from his personal blog so at least he learned something.
Sounds like Rahm Emanuel picked up on what the Israelis are doing with that woman soldiers who leaked something to a blog and is now being tried for treason…. a lot of Israeli non democracy filtering to us through Mr. Emanuel
I wish I had a little more info on this story. Did Politico give up Shamai Leibowitz? If so, shame on them. If the FBI found out about Mr. Leibowitz some other way, well, as an FBI employee he had to have some idea of the risk he was taking.
As “cat” pointed out, there is a procedure in place for exposing corruption. I never worked for the government and even I knew that. Mr. Leibowitz may have felt that going through official channels would have been futile or taken longer than he wanted to expose, but I would advise anyone to try to address such serious issues by the book first. There’s certainly the possibility that it’ll be swept under the rug because of the usual political good old boys (and girls) looking out for each other and other toady behavior, but that’s true no matter what the situation.
Unless the corruption involves a nuclear bomb going off in the next 24 hours the urgency for exposure is probably not as great as would-be exposees might think. Then, if that fails, go rogue and expose the situation to the press.
I don’t know for sure whether Shamai Leibowitz was right or wrong here. Given the Obama administration’s grim, and deteriorating, reputation for transparency, I am not inclined to give the government the benefit of the doubt without more information.
A few general thoughts drawn from 25 years’ experience in journalism:
— It would be nice if whistleblowers were never the victims of retaliation. But they frequently are, and even when the process works through to an appropriate conclusion, the whistleblower is usually out years of stress and lost income and thousands in legal bills. And that’s at the federal level. At the state and local level, things are even worse.
— Anyone who tries to go through the established whistleblowing process may well be targeted for retaliation if ANYTHING is leaked by that agency, even if the whistleblower wasn’t the leaker and the information leaked had nothing to do with what the whistleblower was blowing the whistle on.
— It is a federal crime to classify material so as to cover up a crime. Going the established whistleblowing route therefore may well mean that a government employee is putting his/her fate in the hands of a criminal.
what does this plea bargain have to do with Obama?