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Glenn Greenwald makes a cheeky point about U.S. officials leaking their conclusion that Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad was murdered by Pakistani intelligence because of his reporting on links between the ISI and extremists, a revelation which may inflame tensions between Pakistan and the U.S., a relationship that is already strained:
If any leak warrants a criminal investigation, it's one from high-level officials deliberately jeopardizing the nation's relationship with such a strategically important ally. Will there be a Grand Jury convened to uncover the identity of the two high-level unauthorized leakers, or are such investigations only for low-level officials who disclose information to the citizenry that embarrasses the U.S. Government by exposing serious wrongdoing on the part of its officials? Is the Obama war on whistleblowers devoted, as his defenders insist, to safeguarding the sanctity of vital national security secrets, or is it a campaign of intimidation to deter the exposure of high-level wrongdoing? The administration's response to truly serious leaks committed by its own high level officials provides the answer to those questions.Leaks of national security information don't primarily come from whistleblowers. They come from national security officials who are frequently authorized to discuss such information from their bosses. Yet as Greenwald notes, leak investigations are almost exclusively focused on people who leak information without such prior approval and which somehow damages the government by revealing mismanagement or wrongdoing, all of which suggests that leaking is only a "crime" when it embarrasses the government.
