Another NSA leaker? More expected to come on spying revelations

Columnist?Glenn Greenwald, who broke the NSA spying story, expects there'll be more whistle blowers and more stories based on leaks. The government is treating that as criminal activity.

By Brad Knickerbocker,?Staff writer / June 9, 2013

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper listens to testimony at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March. He says recent leaked reports about secret NSA data gathering have caused "huge, grave damage to our intelligence capabilities."

Susan Walsh/AP

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The explosive revelations about the nation?s super-secret electronic intelligence gathering organization ? so secret its acronym was nicknamed ?No Such Agency? ? has brought major push-back from the Obama administration.

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Top officials are defending the National Security Agency?s data-gathering program involving billions of phone and Internet records, going so far as to declassify some information, including the existence of the PRISM program.

They?re rebutting some of the claims made in press reports about NSA activities even as some news sources are pulling back from what initially was asserted in some of those reports.

And in a move that may have major implications for national security and First Amendment rights ? both of which in turn have the potential for political battles involving unusual alliances ? the administration has begun criminal proceedings aimed at finding the leaker who blew the whistle in providing highly-classified information to the Washington Post and the British news publication the Guardian.

?For me, it is literally ? not figuratively ? literally gut-wrenching to see this happen because of the huge, grave damage it does to our intelligence capabilities,? Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told NBC News?s Andrea Mitchell Saturday night.

?I think we all feel profoundly offended by that,? Mr. Clapper said, speaking of the leaker. ?This is someone who, for whatever reason, has chosen to violate a sacred trust for this country. And so I hope we?re able to track down whoever?s doing this, because it is extremely damaging to, and it affects the safety and security of this country.?

In a statement Saturday, Clapper spoke of ?reckless disclosures,? ?a rush to publish,? and ?significant misimpressions that have resulted from the recent articles.?

"Disclosing information about the specific methods?the government uses to collect communications can obviously give our enemies a 'playbook' of how to avoid detection,? he said.

The ?crimes report? filed by the NSA now goes to the US Justice Department for investigation and possible prosecution. It comes at a time when the Justice Department ? including its politically beleaguered Attorney General Eric Holder ? has been under fire for what critics say is an overly-aggressive and inappropriate effort to ferret out leakers in cases involving the Associated Press and Fox News.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/idSH_NiROMs/Another-NSA-leaker-More-expected-to-come-on-spying-revelations

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