Was it wrong for Mary McCarthy to leak?

[TheFarseer]

the info about secret prisons etc while still working for the CIA?

It's all Rush is talking about today. What else can he talk about - gas prices!!!

[Norquist Nemesis]

1. Has he mentioned she donated to Democrats yet?

Seems that's all they have as to her motivation. :banghead:

[TheFarseer]

5. not that I've heard, but I haven't been listening that closely

He's mentioned that she worked for Clinton about a million times and even suggested that Clinton was behind the whole thing! You know, to get Hillary elected (yeah, I'm sure that will get her over the top?!?!)

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. That wasn't a leak.

It was whistleblowing. It exposed a violation of US and international law.

They only call it a leak because it embarassed the government.

[stanwyck]

3. Depends on who you serve

who is the ultimate authority in your life. If you're nationalistic, you serve the existing government. Not your country, not the people of your country, but the administration. Condi, for example, serves Bush. Her loyalty is not to us, the American people, or America's Constitution, but to her president.
And if you're a person with a moral, ethical base, you could be serving a higher power that is neither government or country. You could be answering to yourself and to your spiritual beliefs.
I doubt Rush understands these distinctions.

[Brotherjohn]

4. Illegal? Maybe. Insubordination? Possibly. Wrong?... HELL NO! (nt)

[Talismom]

6. It was an act of courage and patriotism--as in

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." Tomas Jefferson

[originalpckelly]

7. I love it...

The President is pissed-off at some lady breaking the law and talking about him breaking the law.

I have one message for the President:
If you don't want someone to talk about the bad things your doing, stop doing them.

[The_Casual_Observer]

8. The great thing is that it is a bitch for them to try illegal shit.

Somebody always seems to tell on them! It must really piss them off.

[yellerpup]

9. She was blowing the whistle.

Is that the same as leaking?

[Marie26]

10. No. She's a hero. nt

[Pavulon]

11. Classified means just that..

Just because someone does not like the information they are dealing with does not mean they can disclose classified material.

It is illegal and everyone who holds a clearance knows the rules.

She is LUCKY she is not being jailed under the espionage act.

My low level classification came with the threat of 10 years in jail and massive fines for what she did.

Before I am assailed with bush this and that, let me say any disclosure of classified information by ANYONE done improperly is wrong.

[TheFarseer]

15. I have to agree

IMO, she at least has to quit her job before she reveals this info. Just because bush leaked doesn't make it OK. Lot's of people rob convenience stores, does that make it OK?

[KittyWampus]

17. Jailed? Why are you so sure she is guilty. She may very well be

a convenient scapegoat.

They say she failed a polygraph test but fail to say what she was asked.

NYTimes wrote an entire article about her career. Her co-workers say she is unlikely to be a "leaker". And she was due to retire anyway and unsympathetic to the Neo-Con bullies.

Her career, like other agents who don't kiss Neo-Con ass had been derailed.

[Sammy Pepys]

12. Don't know...

Who knows who or what was compromised by her leaks?

[Pavulon]

13. Hence Compartmental

structure in the intelligence community. Information should be structured so an illegal disclosure due to politics or to a foreign power (imho no difference) can not destroy to much.

However disclosing information can have unintended consequences.

[robertpaulsen]

14. Hell no. Ray McGovern says it all for me.

Mary McCarthy's Choice
Ray McGovern
April 24, 2006



Ray McGovern writes for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. A 27-year veteran of the CIA, he is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

As a 27-year-veteran of the CIA, I have one overwhelming reaction to the news that senior intelligence analyst Mary McCarthy has been fired for leaking information to the press on CIA’s network of secret prisons abroad: She must have seen no alternative to stop the abuses.

It appears that McCarthy was one of the sources upon which Washington Post reporter Dana Priest relied for the prison scoop that won her a Pulitzer. The Post quoted an unnamed “former senior intelligence official” yesterday saying he thought a majority of CIA officers would probably agree with the firing of McCarthy. “A small number might support her, but the ethic of the business is not to leak,” said the former official, adding that one should stay within official grievance channels.

That’s what my colleague, CIA analyst Sam Adams, did 40 years ago—and came to rue the day. Through painstaking research, Adams discovered that Gen. William Westmoreland’s staff in Saigon had been ordered to keep Communist force figures artificially low—about half the actual strength—in order to project a picture of progress. When the countrywide offensive at Tet in early 1968 gave the lie to Westmoreland’s figures and vindicated Adams, Sam tried manfully to hold the culprits accountable by going to the CIA’s and the Pentagon’s inspectors general. He got the proverbial run-around, and some 30,000 additional U.S. troops and a million more Vietnamese fell before the war was over six years later. Adams was never able to shake his nagging remorse at the thought that he might have helped prevent further carnage, had he gone out of “official channels” and briefed his findings to the then-free mainstream press. He died at 55 when his heart gave out.

more...

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/04/24/mary_mccarthys_choice.php

[KittyWampus]

16. It's not a definate fact she did. She was ready to retire & unsympathetic

to the Neo-Cons and thus may be a scapegoat.

[playkate]

18. If you're not going to use an objective standard...

...then EVERYONE who leaks can justify their leaking with SOME excuse. Some will say they were 'just whistleblowing'. Others will say that whatever they said wasn't a leak. Right and wrong isn't to be judged by the PERPETRATOR of the acts; we're supposed to be a nation of objective laws against which to measure things. Someone isn't innocent because they are a Democrat and guilty because they are a Republican.