The Unknown Patriot Who Exposed The Government's Verizon Spy Program -- Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
In praise of whistle-blowers whose risky disclosures of official wrongdoing make the nation stronger rather than weaker.
The federal government forced Verizon to turn over information on the phone calls of millions of innocent Americans and forbade them from telling anybody about it, The Guardian reports. Kudos to Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, and Spencer Ackerman for the impressive scoop, and for posting the evidence here.
Who helped the journalists obtain that "top-secret" court order?
Hopefully, that's going to stay secret for a long time. As Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt note in the New York Times, "The order was marked TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN, referring to communications-related intelligence information that may not be released to noncitizens. That would make it among the most closely held secrets in the federal government, and its disclosure comes amid a furor over the Obama administration's aggressive tactics in its investigations of leaks." In other words, it was likely leaked by someone who took a personal risk exposing it.
Read more ....
My Comment: As intelligence leaks go .... this is one of the biggest. I suspect that right now there is a full blown investigation being conducted on finding the person responsible for this leak .... and heaven help him if he/she gets caught.
Update: DOJ Will 'Very Likely' Investigate Guardian NSA Leak, Says Pete Williams; Official Disagrees -- Huffington Post