[h=1]Blurred Line Between Espionage and Truth[/h]“The Obama administration has been quite hypocritical about its promises of openness, transparency and accountability,” she said. “All presidents hate leaks, but pursuing whistle-blowers as spies is heavy-handed and beyond the scope of the law.”
The Espionage Act, enacted back in 1917 to punish those who gave aid to our enemies, was used three times in all the prior administrations to bring cases against government officials accused of providing classified information to the media. It has been used six times since the current president took office.
the majority of the recent prosecutions seem to have everything to do with administrative secrecy and very little to do with national security. In case after case, the Espionage Act has been deployed as a kind of ad hoc Official Secrets Act, which is not a law that has ever found traction in America, a place where the people’s right to know is viewed as superseding the government’s right to hide its business.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/b...ak-cases-media-equation.html?_r=3&ref=todaysp