Some people in high places think so. :spooked: The following was in yesterday's Washington Post in the Style (?) section instead of the front page.
Reporters 'fencing stolen material'?
By Paul Farhi, Published: February 4, 2014
It's against the law to steal classified government material. But is it also a crime for a journalist to sell a story to a newspaper or Web site based on that material?
Some elected officials and government appointees have suggested the answer is yes in the wake of Edward Snowden's release of secret documents showing the extent of the National Security Agency's surveillance activities. Since June, Snowden's documents have been the basis of articles primarily by Glenn Greenwald, formerly of the Guardian newspaper, and Barton Gellman, a journalist working on contract for The Washington Post.
While experts in media law say the stolen-goods theory has a questionable legal basis, the idea was floated on Tuesday by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., both critics of Snowden.
In an exchange with FBI Director James B. Comey, who was a witness in a hearing about "Worldwide Threats," Rogers pushed Comey about whether selling "access" to classified material to newspapers or another publication amounts to "fencing stolen material" and should be prosecuted.
Comey said that selling stolen goods, such as jewelry, is indeed a crime. But he stopped short of saying it would be a crime if it involved selling a story.
That answer didn't deter Rogers, who drilled in. Without mentioning Greenwald or Gellman by name, he asked Comey, "So if I'm a newspaper reporter for — fill in the blank — and I sell stolen material, is that legal because I'm a newspaper reporter?"
Comey, a former No. 2 at the Justice Department, replied that this was "a harder question" because the First Amendment might protect reporters and publishers. He demurred, saying Rogers should ask the Justice Department.
Rogers obliquely referred to the reporters working with Snowden as "accomplices" — the same word Clapper used in separate testimony on Tuesday and last week during a Senate hearing in which he called on Snowden and those possessing NSA documents to return them.
In interviews Tuesday, Greenwald, a journalist and lawyer, and Martin Baron, the editor of The Post, both said Rogers and Clapper's characterizations "criminalize" the act of being a journalist. By extension, said Greenwald, their comments implicate any news organization that publishes or broadcasts information based on NSA documents.
"You have to be concerned when a member of Congress is framing the issue this way," said Baron. "It leaves the suggestion that legitimate news reporting is tantamount to a criminal act. It's not and shouldn't be characterized that way."
Despite many prosecutions involving the leak of classified material, no journalist or news organization has ever been tried on a "stolen goods" theory, said Lucy Dalglish, the former executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which monitors First Amendment issues.
The closest parallel was the espionage scandal involving a former Defense Department employee, Lawrence Franklin, who passed classified documents regarding U.S. policy toward Iran and Israel to two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The employees, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, were later indicted on charges of conspiracy to disclose classified information, but the case against them was dismissed in 2009.
The case is analogous to news reporting because Rosen and Weissman were merely middle men in the dissemination of classified documents, much as journalists are, said Dalglish, who is now dean of the University of Maryland's journalism school.
Nevertheless, Greenwald said Rogers and Clapper were "trying to mainstream the idea that journalists can be intimidated. This is a very concerted effort on the part of the government to create a climate where [journalists] constantly feel threatened and where at any moment the power of the state will be brought down on you." He added, "I will continue being super-aggressive in my reporting."
In October, the head of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, called on journalists to stop "selling" NSA documents, although he stopped short of saying that doing so was a criminal act.
© The Washington Post Company
www.washingtonpost.com
I'm going to use this thread to post information regarding the stunning breach of national security by NSA employees. They literally handed the 'keys' to Snowden. :spooked:
Whether or not NSA should collect and store personal information is a separate issue.
The following is from today's Washington Post:
NSA employee implicated in Snowden probe resigned, memo says
By Ellen Nakashima, Updated: Thursday, February 13, 3:55 PM
A National Security Agency employee has resigned from his job after admitting to FBI investigators that he allowed Edward Snowden, then an NSA contractor, to use his personal computer credentials to gain access to classified information, according to an agency memo.
The unidentified employee was not aware that Snowden intended to obtain classified material for the purposes of disclosure, said the memo, which was first reported by NBC News.
The employee is one of three people who have been under investigation for their unwitting involvement in Snowden's effort to remove the material in what may be the largest breach of classified information in history.
None was accused of collusion, said a senior U.S. official familiar with the investigation. "It's a violation of procedures . . . but no 'Hey, let's conspire with him to steal information,' " said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
The employee who resigned, a civilian, had his security clearance revoked in November and was notified of a proposal to fire him. He resigned Jan. 10, said the memo, which was addressed to the staff directors of the House Judiciary Committee.
The two other people, a U.S. military member and a contractor, had their access to NSA facilities and material revoked in August, the memo said. They all worked at a regional NSA facility in Hawaii, where Snowden was a contract employee for Dell and later Booz Allen Hamilton, officials said.
The resignation appears to be the first personnel action to result from the breach. Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, shared large amounts of intelligence with several journalists. Their stories began appearing in June and have stirred national and international debate about the proper scope of NSA surveillance.
A Reuters report last fall said that "a handful of agency employees" had given their log-in credentials to Snowden and were removed from their assignments. Snowden, the report said, "may have persuaded between 20 and 25 fellow workers" to give him their log-ins and passwords by telling them they were needed for him to do his job as a computer systems administrator.
In a Google chat last month, Snowden disputed the report and said, "I never stole any passwords, nor did I trick an army of co-workers."
According to the memo, written by Ethan Bauman, the NSA's legislative affairs director, the civilian allowed Snowden to use his public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate to gain access to classified information on NSANet, the agency's intranet, "access that he knew had been denied to Mr. Snowden." PKI is a system of identity credentials designed to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive computer networks.
The memo stated: "Further, at Mr. Snowden's request, the civilian entered his PKI password at Mr. Snowden's computer terminal. Unbeknownst to the civilian, Mr. Snowden was able to capture the password, allowing him even greater access to classified information."
Lawmakers expressed concern Thursday about the security lapses at the agency. "It is unacceptable that the NSA's security protocols and breaches were so easily circumvented," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). "This is the same NSA that asks us to trust that it will keep safe massive amounts of data on innocent Americans, and that we should have faith in its internal policies and procedures."
He said that "for months, I have been asking who is being held accountable, and while the NSA director has testified that they have taken a number of steps as a result of the leaks, it is clear that more needs to be done to protect our national security and our privacy."
Leahy has co-sponsored legislation that would, among other things, end the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records for counterterrorism purposes.
"If it is true that one or more NSA employees felt free to share a password with Snowden or anyone else, we have a serious security problem at the NSA and someone in charge needs to be held accountable," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
Last summer, NSA Director Keith B. Alexander and his deputy at the time, John C. Inglis, offered to resign. Their offers were rejected by the administration. Inglis retired in January and Alexander is retiring in March.
© The Washington Post Company
These miscreants understood the nature of their employment as well as the terms.
There are reasons state secrets are kept just that, secrets, and national security is the foremost of those reasons. It only stands to reason that what is considered a state secret will change as time elapses, because as it does so the nature of the state itself changes.
I'm not sitting in judgment of what information was collected or why it was classified as necessary and secret, because that is well above the average citizen's ability to comprehend. Above it because while it doesn't concern the average person it does have relevance to the safety of every single one of us. Or at least is considered to by those responsible to ensuring our security.
When this information is revealed it threatens the security of this nation, or potentially could. Moreover, those revealing it, or providing access to it to individuals or entities not certified to possess it, are in direct violation of the terms of their employment, and exposing themselves to prosecution according to the law. . .