Schumer Seeks Excuses For NSA Leaks

In a remarkably disingenuous statement, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NYC), has telegraphed the political shenanigans Democrats will employ to exploit the security leaks that exposed US tactics in the War on Terror. The Justice Department recently announced that they will investigate the sources used by the New York Times in their stories about monitoring of international phone calls and emails between Americans and suspected al Qaeda operatives. And rightly so; whoever leaked to the NYT should spend a few years in Leavenworth.

Schumer is setting up the rationale for excusing acts that damaged national security interests. To put a point on it, he's suborning treason for political purposes.

From the Associated Press via Yahoo!News:

WASHINGTON - The investigation into leaks about a domestic spying program should determine whether the motivation was damaging security or revealing a potentially illegal activity, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday.

"There are differences between felons and whistleblowers, and we ought to wait 'til the investigation occurs to decide what happened," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Schumer is incorrect.

There is a process for Federal employees to become officially recognized as whistleblowers through the US Office of the Inspector General. Recognition by the OIG protects the employee from retaliatory employment actions, and triggers an OIG investigation of the charges made by the whistleblower.

It's not enough to simply declare oneself a whistleblower. And whistleblower disclosures are never sanctioned to outside agents, including and especially the Press.

Also posted at The Jawa Report.