Bradley Manning’s conviction under the Espionage Act is the latest development in the Obama administration’s push to prosecute leaks. We’ve updated our timeline with the most recent events.
Despite promises to strengthen protections for whistleblowers, the Obama administration has launched an aggressive crackdown on government employees who have leaked national security information to the press.
With charges filed against NSA leaker Edward Snowden this June, the administration has brought a total of seven cases under the Espionage Act, which dates from World War I and criminalizes disclosing information “relating to the national defense.” Prior to the current administration, there had been only three known casesresulting in indictments in which the Espionage Act was used to prosecute government officials for leaks.
The administration has also targeted journalists. In May, it was revealed that the Department of Justice had secretly seized AP reporters’ phone recordswhile investigating a potential CIA leak, and targeteda Fox News reporter as part of a criminal leak case (outlined below). No journalist has been chargedwith a crime. But the news prompted an outcry that Obama’s hard line on leaks could have a "chilling effect" on investigative reporting that depends on inside sources. (In response, the Justice Department issued new guidelines limiting when journalists’ records can be sought.)
A spokesman for the Department of Justice told us the government “does not target whistleblowers.” (Read their full statement.) As they point out, government whistleblower protections shield only those who raise their concerns through the proper channels within their agency—not through leaks to the media or other unauthorized persons.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper summed up the government’s approach in a 2010 memo: “people in the intelligence business should be like my grandchildren—seen but not heard.”
Here’s a timeline of leak prosecutions under the Espionage Act, showing how they’ve picked up steam under Obama.
1971: Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo indicted
Daniel Ellsberg
Analyst for the military and RAND
Anthony Russo
RAND researcher
Two analysts at the RAND Corporation,
Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo, were indicted for leaking classified
information about the Vietnam War—what came to be known as The Pentagon
Papers. The case was
dismissed in 1973 due to government misconduct.
1985: Samuel Morison convicted
Samuel Morison
Civilian analyst
Samuel Loring
Morison, a civilian analyst with the Navy, was convicted of leaking classified
satellite photographs to a British magazine. He was sentenced to 2 years
in prison, and eventually pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001.
August 2005: Lawrence Franklin indicted
Lawrence Franklin
State Department analyst
Franklin, an analyst for the State Department, was charged with leaking classified information about Iran to two lobbyists for AIPAC.
January 2006: Lawrence Franklin convicted
Franklin pled guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in
prison, which was later reduced to ten months’ house arrest. The two
lobbyists were also indicted for receiving unauthorized information—a
highly unusual charge—but the case against them was dropped in May of
2009.
April 2010: Thomas Drake indicted
National
Security Agency employee Thomas Drake
was charged with violating the Espionage Act for retaining classified documents
for “unauthorized disclosure.” He was suspected to have
leaked information on the agency’s surveillance program TrailBlazer.
The case against Drake began under the Bush administration – FBI agents raided
his house in 2007.
May 2010: Shamai Leibowitz convicted
Shamai Leibowitz
FBI translator
Leibowitz, a linguist and translator for the FBI, pleaded guilty
to leaking classified information to a blogger. He was sentenced to 20 months in
prison. At the time of his sentencing, not even the
judge knew
exactly what he had leaked, though later
disclosures indicated
it was FBI wiretaps of conversations between Israeli diplomats about Iran.
June 2010: Bradley Manning arrested
Bradley Manning
Army intelligence analyst
Bradley Manning, a
22-year Army Private, was arrested after he told someone online that he was the source for Wikileaks’
biggest gets, including a
quarter-million State Department cables.
It
will be more almost two years before he is ultimately charged in a military court. In February 2013, he pleaded
guilty to providing files to Wikileaks, but not to
violating the Espionage Act and other charges. Courts have maintained an unprecedented
level of secrecy over the case, withholding documents and allowing witnesses to
testify in secret.
August 2010: Stephen Kim indicted
Stephen Kim
State Department analyst
Kim, an analyst working under contract with the State
Department, was indicted for giving classified information
to Fox News about North Korea. His case is still pending. In a July 2013 ruling
in the case, a federal judge said the government did
not need to show that the information leaked could have damaged national security
– just that Kim knew it could and willfully leaked the information.
The Washington Post reported in May 2013 that Fox News journalist James Rosen was investigated in the
Kim case. The Department seized Rosen’s phone records and emails, and tracked his
“comings and goings from the State Department.” Rosen was not charged with a
crime, but an FBI investigator wrote that there was evidence he was a
“co-conspirator.”
December 2010: Jeffrey Sterling indicted
Jeffrey Sterling
CIA officer
Sterling, a CIA officer, was charged with leaking
information about the CIA’s efforts against Iran’s nuclear program. His
case is still pending.
New York Times reporter James Risen was ordered to testify in Sterling’s trial. Prosecutors believed Kim had
leaked material to Risen for his book, “State of War.” Risen fought the
subpoena, arguing that it was his First Amendment right to protect his source’s
confidentiality. In July 2013,
Risen lost
that fight, when a federal appeals court said there was no “reporters
privilege” that could allow him not to testify.
Jun. 2011: Case against Thomas Drake dropped
Drake pled guilty to a minor
charge, not under the Espionage Act, and served no prison time. The
government had decided that they could not prosecute him without revealing
details about the documents he supposedly leaked. Critics saw the government’s
withdrawal as a sign that they had overreached in using the Espionage Act.
January 2012: John Kiriakou charged
John Kiriakou
former CIA officer
John Kiriakou was charged with leaking
information about the interrogation of an Al Qaeda leader and disclosing
the name of a CIA analyst involved. Kiriakou gave an
interview on ABC News in 2007 detailing the Bush administration’s use of
waterboarding in interrogating terrorist suspects.
October 2012: John Kiriakou convicted
Kiriakou pleaded guilty to disclosing the name of a
covert CIA officer. He was convicted of violating the Intelligence Identities
Protection Act, the first under the law in 27 years. In January, Kiriakou was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.
June 14, 2013: Edward Snowden Charged
Edward Snowden
Former NSA Contractor
Edward Snowden, who leaked documents
about the NSA’s secret surveillance programs, was charged
with theft of government property and two counts of disclosing information
under the Espionage Act – charges which together carry a penalty of up to
30 years in prison.
July 30, 2013: Bradley Manning Convicted
A military tribunal judge found
Manning not guilty of aiding the enemy – the most serious charge
against him. He was found guilty of multiple counts under the Espionage Act and
five counts of theft, among other charges. He could
spend decades in prison.
Christie Thompson contributed to this story.
Statement from the Department of Justice:
·
The
Justice Department has always taken seriously cases in which government employees
and contractors entrusted with classified information are suspected of
willfully disclosing such classified information to those not entitled to
it. As a general matter, prosecutions of whose who leaked classified
information to reporters have been rare, due, in part, to the inherent
challenges involved in identifying the person responsible for the illegal
disclosure and in compiling the evidence necessary to prove it beyond a
reasonable doubt in a court of law. Prosecutorial decisions are always
based on the facts, the evidence and the law. The Department has been
working with the intelligence community not only to expedite but also to
improve the handling of such cases. The Justice Department has also been
working with these agencies to ensure that that the intelligence community and
other agencies have remedies of their own to address employees suspected of
leaking classified information in those instances where criminal prosecution is
not feasible.
· The Justice Department does not target whistleblowers.
Should any federal employee wish to blow the whistle or report government wrongdoing, there are well-established mechanisms for doing
so with the Offices of Inspector General of their respective
agencies. With regard to classified information, there is a
particular statute providing lawful mechanisms for reporting such
matters. We always encourage federal employees to do so. However,
we cannot sanction or condone federal employees who knowingly and willfully
disclose classified information to the media or others not entitled to receive
such information. An individual in authorized
possession of classified information has no authority or right to unilaterally
determine that classified information should be made public or disclosed to
those not entitled to it. The leaker is not the owner of such information
and only the owner can declassify such information.
As a
general matter and as provided by the law, federal regulations and Justice
Department guidelines, whenever the Justice Department conducts an
investigation of this sort, we seek to strike the proper balance between First
Amendment freedoms and the law enforcement and national security interest in
investigating unauthorized disclosures of classified information. In
recognition of the importance of freedom of the press to a free and democratic
society, it is the Justice Department’s policy that the prosecutorial power of
the government should not be used in such a way that it impairs a reporter’s
responsibility to cover as broadly as possible controversial public
issues.
Image Sources: Associated Press, Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons
