Head-In-Sand Approach: White House Bans Current & Former Intelligence Staff From Discussing Any Media Leaks

from the that'll-work dept

The Obama administration continues to make incredibly ridiculous decisions in response to the whole Snowden thing. A few weeks ago, we wrote about new rules from James Clapper that banned intelligence community employees from interacting with anyone who was a reporter (or who just had a social media account) without first getting approval. And the latest is that Clapper has issued a new "instruction" which effectively bars all intelligence community employees (and contractors) from even referring to public news reports about any leaks. It appears that any current or former intelligence community official mentioning any of the reporting about Snowden's leaks without first getting permission may run afoul of these rules.

In the past, we've criticized the government's "head-in-sand" approach to dealing with leaked information. Back in 2010, we pointed out how idiotic it was for the Pentagon to tell all Defense Department employees that they weren't allowed to visit Wikileaks to see the State Department cables that were being littered all over the press. Similarly, after the Snowden revelations, the Defense Department blocked access to the Guardian's webiste, where the original documents were first posted. Similarly, Congressional staffers were told not to look at the Snowden documents -- and if they happened to see one accidentally, they had to call security "for assistance."

The thinking behind this approach is that those documents are technically classified, and if you don't have the proper clearance, you shouldn't have them on a government computer. And, yes, I do understand the complications it causes for government employees who have very strict rules about dealing with classified documents, and how it gets a bit trickier when classified documents are leaked publicly -- but at some point you have to sit back and realize the end result is preposterous and there are better ways to deal with it. In the business world, it's fairly standard for non-disclosure agreements to have a clause that says you're allowed to discuss the information you learned if it becomes public via other means. This is perfectly sensible. The intent is to try to block the initial disclosure. But once it's out there, it makes no sense to bar the discussion of it.

And while (as described above), it's always been the case that government officials were barred from making use of leaked classified documents, this new "instruction" expands things in two ridiculous ways. First, it appears to apply to former intelligence community employees in addition to current ones. And, second, it says they can't even refer to the news coverage of those leaks -- which has long been a way that people could refer to known leaks without referencing the leaked documents directly.

ODNI personnel must not use sourcing that comes from known leaks, or unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information. The use of such information in a publication can confirm the validity of an unauthorized disclosure and cause further harm to national security. ODNI personnel are not authorized to use anonymous sourcing.

The NY Times quotes a former White House intelligence employee, noting that this restriction is almost certainly a First Amendment violation:

Timothy H. Edgar, a visiting professor at Brown University who worked at the intelligence office and the White House from 2006 to 2013, said it was appropriate to block former officials from disclosing classified information and confirming leaks.

But, he said, it went too far to retroactively block former officials from citing news reports in the public domain, as long as they did so neutrally and did not confirm them as factually correct. That would amount to a prior restraint on former officials’ First Amendment rights that they did not consent to, he said.

“You’re basically saying people can’t talk about what everyone in the country is talking about,” he said. “I think that is awkward and overly broad in terms of restricting speech.”

Once again, beyond making a continued mockery of "the most transparent administration in history" claims, these rules just make no sense at all. Yes, Clapper and Obama don't want someone "confirming" what's in a leaked document, but to date there have hardly been many issues with anyone worrying about the legitimacy of leaked documents. Maybe this is part of a new idiotic strategy by Clapper to call into question the validity of future leaked documents from Snowden and from others.

Either way, barring intelligence employees (current and former) from even discussing clearly public information is the epitome of a head-in-sand approach in which denying reality seems like a better strategy than living in reality. I don't know about you, but I want a government that is willing to actually face up to the world we live in, rather than sticking its fingers in its ears and shouting "la la la -- I can't hear you." That doesn't seem like a sensible plan by any "intelligence" community.

Filed Under: classified information, ed snowden, free speech, james clapper, leaks, prior restraint

What Do You Get When You Mix Napster, Wikileaks, Snowden And Open Access?

from the epic dept

An article in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, which calls itself "the leading peer-reviewed journal for health and healthcare in the Internet age", has the intriguing title: "Is Biblioleaks Inevitable?" Here's what its authors mean by that:

In 2014, the vast majority of published biomedical research is still hidden behind paywalls rather than open access. For more than a decade, similar restrictions over other digitally available content have engendered illegal activity. Music file sharing became rampant in the late 1990s as communities formed around new ways to share. The frequency and scale of cyber-attacks against commercial and government interests has increased dramatically. Massive troves of classified government documents have become public through the actions of a few. Yet we have not seen significant growth in the illegal sharing of peer-reviewed academic articles. Should we truly expect that biomedical publishing is somehow at less risk than other content-generating industries? What of the larger threat -- a "Biblioleaks" event -- a database breach and public leak of the substantial archives of biomedical literature? As the expectation that all research should be available to everyone becomes the norm for a younger generation of researchers and the broader community, the motivations for such a leak are likely to grow. We explore the feasibility and consequences of a Biblioleaks event for researchers, journals, publishers, and the broader communities of doctors and the patients they serve.

The point about how a series of recent historical events -- Napster, Wikileaks, Snowden etc. -- has led to an increasing normalization of certain activities like sharing and leaking, is well made. Although it's rather piquant to see the Biblioleaks idea being explored in an academic journal, the underlying insight -- that people frustrated by the present system of academic publishing might take the law into their own hands -- is hardly original. After all, it's precisely what Aaron Swartz described in his Guerilla Open Access Manifesto (pdf), which Techdirt wrote about last year. Here's Swartz's call to "biblioleaking":

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.

Of course, that is what he seems to have been doing when he was arrested at MIT, followed by prosecutorial bullying and threats and, eventually, a tragic suicide. The Guerilla Open Access Manifesto begins as follows:

Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

As we reported two years ago, Elsevier was the object of a major boycott by academics, organized by the mathematician Tim Gowers. Although that garnered a fair amount of publicity, it doesn't seem to have caused Elsevier to change its behavior much. But Gowers is not finished with the company, either. He has just published a blog post entitled "Elsevier journals -- some facts". That's something of an understatement: the 12,000-word blockbuster details Gowers dogged attempts to answer what ought to be a fairly straightforward question: how much are UK universities paying for access to Elsevier's articles? The final figure, although incomplete, turns out to be quite hefty: £14.4 million ($24 million) a year, and that's for just 19 of the top UK universities.

As interesting as the figure itself is the difficulty of obtaining it (do read Gower's amazing post to get a feel for how epic his struggle was.) That secrecy about the high prices universities must pay for journals, coupled with the major obstacles to accessing "the world's entire scientific and cultural heritage" that remain, are why the likelihood of some kind of Biblioleaks happening in the not-too-distant future remains high.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: biblioleaks, books, leaks, research, sharing

James Clapper Bans Intelligence Community From Basically Any Interaction With Nearly Anyone With A Social Media Account

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Back in 2012, we wrote about how Senator Dianne Feinstein appeared to be a lot more focused on who leaked information about the US involvement in Stuxnet, rather than the question of whether or not the US should have been involved in Stuxnet in the first place. Soon after, Feinstein pushed for astoundingly broad "anti-leak" rules that would effectively make it illegal to blow the whistle. It automatically treated any leak as bad, even if such a leak was clearly to blow the whistle on illegal behavior. Thankfully, Senator Wyden stepped in and helped kill that effort, noting the serious consequences:

"I think Congress should be extremely skeptical of any anti-leaks bills that threaten to encroach upon the freedom of the press, or that would reduce access to information that the public has a right to know," Wyden said in a floor statement publicly announcing his hold. "Without transparent and informed public debate on foreign policy and national security topics, American voters would be ill-equipped to elect the policymakers who make important decisions in these areas."

This resulted in the anti-leak provision being withdrawn. However, it appears that, in late March, Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, more or less put in place the same rules issuing an intelligence community directive that bars all unauthorized contact with the media, no matter what the subject or the issue. You can read the directive here. While some may argue that of course no member of the intelligence community should be able to communicate with a member of the media without authorization, they are ignoring a few key points.

First, it makes no distinction at all between classified and non-classified information. That's a big deal. It's reasonable (to a certain extent) to suggest that intelligence employees should not be discussing classified information with the press, but when you get into unclassified material, it gets fairly ridiculous pretty quickly. Lots of members of the intelligence community will often help reporters out, providing explanations and details on background, and that's the sort of thing the intelligence community should support given that they frequently complain that the press gets important details wrong.

Furthermore, as Wyden himself pointed out in the debate about Feinstein's original attempt:

I am concerned that they will lead to less-informed public debate about national security issues, and also undermine the due process rights of intelligence agency employees, without actually enhancing national security.

But, of course, it gets even worse as you dig into the details. In the directive, "media" is defined incredibly broadly:

For purpose of this Directive, media is any person, organization, or entity (other than Federal, State, local, tribal and territorial governments):

a. primarily engaged in the collection production, or dissemination to the public of information in any form, which includes print, broadcast, film and Internet; or

b. otherwise engaged in the collection, production, or dissemination to the public of information in any ofrm related to topics of national security, which includes print, broadcast, film and Internet.

Perhaps I'm misreading it, but section "b" especially would appear to suggest that if you ever use your Facebook/Twitter/etc. account to share (i.e., "disseminate") any info concerning the "topic of national security," you're a part of the media. Did you share a Guardian story about Ed Snowden on Facebook? Or maybe comment about the Heartbleed bug? Congrats, you're now considered "the media" under this directive -- meaning that no one who works for the intelligence community is allowed to interact with you at all, except with authorization. For intelligence community employees, this effectively rules out their ability to do things like go to their neighbors' barbecue this summer if that neighbor has ever shared any information concerning an issue that might be under the big umbrella of national security.

And, while it's unlikely that the FBI is suddenly going to be tracking down a lowly NSA analyst for sharing small talk with his or her neighbor, if that same analyst is suddenly under investigation for other issues, you'd better believe that such interactions will be brought under scrutiny. We've seen it before. An investigation into Thomas Drake's whistleblowing turned up nothing, so the DOJ went after him because he had a classified meeting agenda on a computer (even though it was declassified anyway soon after) and threatened him with 35 years in jail. John Kiriakou blew the whistle on CIA torture, but was eventually charged with helping a reporter speak to another former CIA agent in a manner that revealed nothing that would have an impact on national security. In other words, when the DOJ wants to bring an intelligence community employee down, they'll find anything to do so. And this directive gives them another tool, while at the same time making sure to stifle the public discourse on what the intelligence community is doing.

Filed Under: dianne feinstein, intelligence community, james clapper, journalism, leaks, ron wyden, social media

Dianne Feinstein Asks DOJ To Investigate Leak Of Torture Report Summary To McClatchy News Service

from the because-only-Senate-staffers-are-allowed-to-access-unauthorized-documents dept

Sen. Feinstein seemed incredibly outraged that her office was spied on by the CIA in its efforts to keep a torture report under wraps. This was noted with some attendant irony, given Feinstein's boisterous support of the NSA's surveillance efforts.

Now, she's stepped into irony again, opening an investigation of McClatchy News for leaking a condensed, bullet-points-only summation of the findings hidden within the still-unreleased 6,600-page "torture report."

The Senate Intelligence Committee has opened an investigation into how McClatchy obtained the classified conclusions of a report into the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, the panel’s chairwoman said Friday.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she was also referring the case to the Justice Department for investigation.

“If someone distributed any part of this classified report, they broke the law and should be prosecuted,” Feinstein said in a prepared statement. “The committee is investigating this unauthorized disclosure and I intend to refer the matter to the Department of Justice.”

Unauthorized disclosure, maybe. But it's looking more and more like the only way Americans are ever going to see the inside of the infamous report is via unauthorized channels, what with the CIA asking for redaction privileges. This is the same Senator who fought the CIA over control of this report, only now she wants to control how the information is fed to the public.

The investigation of the CIA wasn't performed just because Washington had money to waste. Supposedly this was done in the public interest, even if almost everyone involved has done as much as they can to keep the information out of the public's hands. It's the kind of government no one wants: one that internalizes its investigative efforts and withholds the findings. The public is frequently treated like an unwanted side effect of governing. "Shut up," Feinstein explained, "or we'll make you regret ever speaking up."

Disappointing, yes. But worse, it's predictable. McClatchy isn't happy.

“We are disappointed that Sen. Feinstein plans to seek a Justice Department investigation of our journalism,” said James Asher, McClatchy’s Washington bureau chief. “We believe that Americans need to know what the CIA might have done to detainees and who is responsible for any questionable practices, which is why we have vigorously covered this story.”

Asher is right about the public knowing, which is ostensibly the endpoint of investigations like these. But now that it's all been compiled, representatives are (somewhat inadvertently) joining forces with the same agency they decried and throwing as much dirt as they can over any exposure. There's a slim chance that much of the 480-page "executive summary" will survive the rounds of redactions headed its way. For McClatchy to release a 2-page summary is a drop in bucket compared to the voluminous whole.

The DOJ will now (possibly) start searching for yet another whistleblower, one who felt the refusal to discuss the contents beyond vague generalities was an intellectually dishonest move by those heading the investigation. But it's even more wrongheaded for Feinstein to request an investigation into this leaked document, only a few months removed from the CIA asking the DOJ to investigate Feinstein's staffers for their "unauthorized removal" of documents. It's apparently OK to take "unauthorized" documents if you're a Senator, but not so much if you're a journalist.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, doj, leaks, reporting, torture report
Companies: mcclatchy

The Only Way We'll Really Learn About The CIA's Torture Program Is If Someone Leaks The Report

from the it'll-happen-eventually dept

Last week, we noted that the Senate Intelligence Committee had voted to declassify a small part of its $40 million, 6,300-page report that apparently details how the CIA's torture program exceeded granted authorities, was totally useless in gathering intelligence, and resulted in the CIA lying to Congress. Of course, even with the declassification vote, it's only been agreed to declassify the 480-page executive summary and major findings, leaving the vast majority of the paper in secret. Furthermore, that executive summary is now going to go through months of an intensive "declassification process," which appears to involve letting the CIA itself take giant black markers to redact all the bits it doesn't like.

As we mentioned last week, VP Joe Biden himself had argued for releasing the document by highlighting the importance of being open and admitting to the horrific mistakes that were made:

“I think the only way you excise the demons is you acknowledge, you acknowledge exactly what happened straightforward,” Biden said. “The single best thing that ever happened to Germany were the war crimes tribunals, because it forced Germany to come to its milk about what in fact has happened.”

Except that's not what's happening. We're not going to get true acknowledgement of what happened in a straightforward way. We're not going to have real openness about it. We're going to have a tiny portion of a report that is redacted by the very organization accused of potential crimes against humanity and then covering it up. And that's why folks like Trevor Timm are arguing that if we're ever going to truly confront what our own nation did, someone needs to leak the entire report. Yes, there have been a variety of leaks about what's in the report to the press, but without the full story we can't, as Biden himself has said, "acknowledge exactly what happened straightforward."

It's possible the only way the public will ever get to see the entire landmark report is the same way we've learned everything we know about it: if someone leaks it.

Leaks have been critical to the public knowledge of Bush-era torture since the first hints of Abu Ghraib, and as longtime torture investigator Katherine Hawkins noted, "The Senate report would likely never have existed ... if it were not for previous investigations by journalists and non-governmental organizations."

Of course, leaking such a report would likely then lead to yet another round of President Obama's war on whistleblowers, in which administration officials go around reminding everyone that leaks are akin to terrorism, and leakers get charged under the Espionage Act, which was designed to be used against spies selling us out to foreign governments, not whistleblowers informing the public.

Filed Under: cia, journalism, leaks, senate, senate intelligence committee, torture

To Catch A Meaningless Leaker, Microsoft Made It Clear It Has No Concern For Your Privacy

from the cost-benefit dept

Yesterday, we wrote about the bizarre decision by Microsoft to search through a reporter's Microsoft Hotmail email account, in an attempt to catch the Microsoft employee who had leaked that reporter a copy of Windows 8. While most of the initial stories about this had focused on the arrest of the employee, Alex Kibkalo, and had pushed the email snooping issue to the bottom of the story, it appears that the email snooping is quickly becoming the story. After all, the leak itself was basically meaningless. Some early screenshots of Windows 8 were never a big deal, and Microsoft has struggled to get adoption of Windows 8 not because of any leak, but because a variety of other issues. So capturing the leaker does little of benefit for Microsoft.

However, at the same time, revealing that the company has no problem snooping through users' email accounts if it feels it is beneficial to Microsoft is hugely damaging to the company. People need to trust their email providers. A well-known venture capitalist I know has spoken repeatedly about how so many people use Gmail, even when doing things like negotiating deals with Google (or competitors!) because they actually trust Google not to abuse their privacy and snoop on those emails. In part, they do this because they know if Google was exposed for snooping on emails that way there would be a mass exodus from Gmail to alternative providers. Yet, Microsoft doesn't seem to have considered just how astoundingly damaging it is to violate its own users privacy -- whether permitted by Microsoft's terms of service or not.

On a basic cost-benefit analysis it's difficult to see how anyone at Microsoft thought this was a wise move. Absolutely wipe out any possible trust and privacy for all email users to track down one meaningless leaker? Instead, what this shows is how "piracy obsession" blinds companies. They seem to forget all about cost-benefit analysis and assume that "something must be done" at all costs, even if it basically destroys an entire business line for the company.

Microsoft is now desperately trying to minimize the damage as it's realizing just how it's wiped out all of its bogus talk about protecting your privacy. They've announced new policies concerning how and when they'll violate your privacy, but this seems quite clearly to be a case of too little, too late.

Filed Under: copyright, cost benefit, email, leaks, overreaction, privacy, trust
Companies: microsoft

Government Employees Suddenly Worried About Surveillance As New Plans To Stop The Next Snowden Strip All Privacy

from the surveillance-on-themselves dept

The Associated Press has a story about how the US intelligence community is ramping up efforts to stop the next Ed Snowden by basically monitoring nearly everything that government employees and contractors with security clearance do:

Stung by internal security lapses, U.S. intelligence officials plan to use a sweeping electronic system to continually monitor workers with secret clearances.... The system is intended to identify rogue agents, corrupt officials and leakers and draws on a Defense Department model under development for more than a decade.... Intelligence officials have long wanted a computerized system that could monitor employees, in part to foil leakers like former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden....

Of course, now that it's about the intelligence community spying on the intelligence community, those government employees are suddenly feeling a bit uncomfortable about all of this:

Privacy advocates and government employee union officials expressed concerns that electronic monitoring could intrude into individuals' private lives, prompt flawed investigations and put sensitive personal data at greater risk.

The officials backing the program claim this is no real risk because "the system would have safeguards." Of course, that's the excuse we've been hearing for ages about the bulk data collection programs that the NSA and FBI use -- that supposedly they have "safeguards." Considering that the government employees union doesn't seem satisfied with that response indicates that the folks who actually work in the intelligence community know that such "safeguards" are pretty bogus and do little to actually protect privacy.

Of course, there seems to be no recognition from those who are complaining about this new system that it shows why the American public (and, well, the rest of the world) are so concerned about the other surveillance programs of the intelligence community.

Filed Under: intelligence community, leaks, monitoring, privacy, whistleblowers

John McCain Proposes A New Senate Committee To Do What The Intelligence Committee Is Supposed To Do

from the don't-we-have-that-already dept

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence came out of the Church Committee, which was set up to explore abuses by the intelligence community, and to create a more functioning oversight of the intelligence community. Of course, as we've seen over the years, what started out as an effort to rein in abuses and to make sure the intelligence community plays by the rules, has instead turned into a committee to basically be complicit in many of those abuses and to try to run interference in Congress against any attempt to stop them. Either way, it seems somewhat ironic that Senator John McCain, who is not currently a member of the Intelligence Committee, has now proposed a brand new "select committee" to explore Congress's oversight of the intelligence community. Think of it as a shadow intelligence committee.

The full resolution even notes:

Whereas senior officials in the intelligence community may have misled Congress or otherwise obfuscated the nature, extent, or use of certain intelligence-collection programs, operations, and activities of the National Security Agency, including intelligence-collection programs affecting Americans;

Whereas the provision of incomplete or inaccurate information by officials of the intelligence community has inhibited effective congressional oversight of certain intelligence-collection programs, operations, and activities of the National Security Agency, including intelligence- collection programs affecting Americans, and undermined congressional and public support of these programs;

That said, I wouldn't think of this so much as a new Church Committee at all. While the above sections do suggest some interest in reining in a rogue intelligence community, much of the other aspects of the proposed committee are focused on things like exploring how the Snowden leak happened in the first place, whether or not the NSA should stop using contractors, and whether or not the Snowden leaks "harmed" US spying methods (note that they don't seem to want to explore whether or not informing the public may actually help).

So, yes, this proposed committee seems more like the status quo, but at the same time, something of a slap in the face to the existing Intelligence Committee and the fact that it doesn't seem to have done its job.

Filed Under: congress, ed snowden, intelligence committee, john mccain, leaks, select committee, surveillance

Are Other NSA Employees Leaking Documents Under The Cover Of Snowden?

from the could-be-useful...-could-be-disinfo dept

While we were just suggesting that there are ways that NSA employees who believe the organization has gone too far can make a difference without also leaking documents, some are beginning to suspect that Snowden's activities may be creating at least some copycats -- and the interesting tidbit is that they may be less likely to get caught, because everyone assumes any new leaks are from Snowden. Matt Blaze recently noted that the most recent bombshell concerning the NSA's catalog of exploits, didn't actually name a source. And Glenn Greenwald has hinted strongly that the information is not from Snowden.

That doesn't mean that the information isn't from Snowden. It could very well be from him and just no one's said so. Greenwald's statements may actually be an attempt to solicit further leaks by making it clear that other leakers may be able to hide under the cover of Snowden. Blaze also points out that this possibility certainly runs the very real risk of someone providing false information to credulous reporters. That could come from those just pulling a prank or, more sinisterly, from an intelligence community looking to flood the press with disinformation to dilute and attempt to discredit the Snowden leaks. The intelligence community has certainly been involved in such campaigns in the past.

That said, this is a real opportunity for others who would like to blow the whistle from within the intelligence community to potentially do so under the cover of Snowden, allowing them to leak without everyone searching for the new leaker, believing the information is actually coming from Snowden. Still, if that's happening, I hope that the reporters receiving those documents heed Blaze's advice to be exceptionally careful to authenticate the documents, to find additional sources and also to disclose any uncertainty about the authenticity of the documents.

Filed Under: ed snowden, journalism, leaks, nsa, sources, surveillance

Feds Focus Investigation On Who Leaked Report Implicating Ex-CIA Boss For Intelligence Leak... Rather Than On Initial Leak

from the high-court-low-court dept

We've discussed the whole "high court/low court" concept here a few times before -- in that those who are powerful play by one set of rules, while the rest of us have to play by a very different set of rules. Keep that in mind as you read the following.

A couple of years ago, then CIA boss Leon Panetta apparently revealed a bunch of classified information concerning the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound to filmmaker Mark Boal, who went on to write the screenplay for the film "Zero Dark Thirty." Boal was the lone guest without security clearance at a speech Panetta gave revealing a bunch of details, including the identity of the ground commander of the Navy SEAL unit that executed the raid. And others in the raiding party were at the event, sitting in the front row with name tags. Panetta's revealing of this info to Boal was revealed in a draft report by the Pentagon Inspector Generals' office. Also in that report was the information that the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Michael Vickers, had disclosed classified names to both Boal and Kathryn Bigelow, who directed the film.

When the "official" Inspector General report came out, the initial findings that both Panetta and Vickers had revealed classified information had been scrubbed. It doesn't blame either of them, even though the internal findings said they had, in fact, revealed that info. However, the draft report that implicated Panetta and Vickers was then leaked to reporters for newspaper giant McClatchy, as well as a non-profit, leading to Panetta and Vickers' actions being publicly reported.

So... guess what the government is angry about? Is it those top officials revealing classified information to filmmakers? Or... is it government insiders revealing to the press that those top officials revealed classified information? Yes, you already know the answer. No one seems interested in doing anything about Panetta or Vickers. Rather, the government is "aggressively" trying to go after whoever released the draft report -- even though the details in that report weren't classified.

More than two years after sensitive information about the Osama bin Laden raid was disclosed to Hollywood filmmakers, Pentagon and CIA investigations haven’t publicly held anyone accountable despite internal findings that the leakers were former CIA Director Leon Panetta and the Defense Department’s top intelligence official.

Instead, the Pentagon Inspector General’s Office is working to root out who might have disclosed the findings on Panetta and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers to a nonprofit watchdog group and to McClatchy.

The report notes that the Inspector General's office has been "grilling" a bunch of people, trying to dig out who revealed the draft report that named Panetta and Vickers.

The end result seems clear. If you're super high up in the political chain, you get the high court. Reveal classified info to filmmakers? No worries. Not only will you not be prosecuted or even lose your job, the inspectors will scrub your name from the report and, according to the article, the person in charge of the investigation will "slow roll" the eventual release of the report until you switch jobs.

But if you're just a worker bee and you leaked the unclassified draft report that names Panetta and Vickers? Well, you get the low court. A new investigation, including aggressive pursuit by the government, and interrogations of staffers to try to find out who leaked the report.

Filed Under: cia, defense department, leaks, leon panetta, michael vickers