Government Leaks and Their Consequences in the United States.

1.) Edward Snowden's NSA case

Information disclosed by American-Russian whistleblower Edward Snowden in the summer of 2013 provided insight into the extent of surveillance and espionage practices by intelligence agencies around the world – primarily in the United States and the United Kingdom, but also in many other countries. The revelations sparked the Global Surveillance and Espionage Affair (also known as the "NSA Affair"). Snowden's leaks revealed details of the steps taken by the US government to secretly monitor millions of Americans.

The surveillance program was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and government officials saw the need to strengthen security programs and surveillance operations to screen out potential criminal and terrorist threats. However, the leaks from Snowden revealed that the government collects information not only about potential terrorist threats, but also from citizens.

Snowden, a National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who later fled to Hong Kong and eventually Russia and was accused of embezzling government property and other crimes, exposed US and European spying programs. The leaks revealed that the US government had disrupted many European Union offices and spied on at least thirty-eight foreign embassies.

2.) The Pentagon Papers

In March 1971, a top-secret defense study was leaked to The New York Times on US involvement in the Vietnam War, which found that it had become increasingly unpopular as the conflict dragged on into the 1970s. The resulting Times report set off an avalanche detailing the country's decades-long involvement in Vietnam and vindicating many anti-war critics.

The documents detailing important US policy decisions and deliberations between 1945 and 1967 were leaked by military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who secretly photocopied the report and gave it to reporters. The papers were condemning the actions of successive American presidents - Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson - regarding the conflicts in the region.

The leak dealt a major blow to the U.S. military and political establishment, with details that officials have tried to keep under wraps for years. It also resulted in a dramatic battle between the federal government and the press after the Justice Department granted a temporary injunction against publication of the reports. The prosecution eventually dropped the charges. In late June 1971, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, allowed the Times and The Washington Post to continue publishing the reports, and the scandal remains one of the most defining press freedom cases in US history.

3.) Iraq war diaries

In 2010, WikiLeaks, the media organization founded by Julian Assange, published a trove of leaked secret military documents detailing the activities of US and coalition forces in the 2004-2009 Iraq War.

The documents revealed a number of secret, disturbing developments about the war, including the number of civilian deaths. By 2009, leaks revealed that 66,000 civilians had died, which was more than 60 percent of those who died in the war. It also revealed that thousands of civilian deaths have yet to be publicly reported. The documents also allege abuses took place at the prison, even after the treatment of detainees became widely publicized early in the war. The documents also found that US forces had handed over prisoners to an Iraqi group known for its widespread torture tactics.

The leaks include nearly 400,000 reports or diaries recorded by soldiers on the ground during the war. The leak contributed to the decline in public support for the war, which had already declined after the initial decision to invade the country in 2003. By the time President Obama announced his intention to end US operations in Iraq in 2011, 75 percent of respondents (according to a Pew Research poll) fully supported the president's decision to end the war.

4.) Robert Hanssen's spy career

He was a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who spied against the United States for Soviet and Russian intelligence services between 1979 and 2001.

In 1976, Robert Hanssen joined the FBI as a special agent. During his 25 years with the FBI and law enforcement, he spied for the United States government. During the Cold War, Hanssen operated as a spy for the Soviet Union, remaining undetected for years before being suspected by officials in the mid-1980s. Given his role at the FBI, Hanssen had access to classified information, selling thousands to Soviet and Russian sources, detailing US military plans, strategies for nuclear war, and weapons technology. He reportedly made about $1.4 million in cash and diamonds from selling intelligence information.

In 2000, law enforcement obtained Russian information that suggested Hanssen was the spy. Investigators caught up with Hanssen when he disclosed classified information to Russian sources in a park in Virginia and arrested him. Hanssen eventually pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage; In 2002, he was sentenced to life in prison by the Criminal Court in Alexandria, Virginia.

5.) Ukrainian war leaks

The recent leak of NATO documents related to the war in Ukraine has been reported as one of the largest military and intelligence breaches in US history - with the possibility that it was leaked by a Russian source and some pointing out that some of the information may have been altered.

Although NATO officials have yet to confirm the authenticity or source of the leaks, the documents provide an interesting insight into the war in Ukraine, detailing U.S. support for western Ukraine, including advances in military aid. According to the New York Times, the documents also reveal that the United States spied on both Russian and Ukrainian leaders to monitor the war. They also detail how the United States uses satellites to track Russian military movements, according to the Times.

One thing they are not revealing, however, is the plan to renew the Ukrainian counteroffensive that was widely rumored after Russia launched an offensive in late winter that largely stalled.

Criminal Prohibitions on Leaking and Other Disclosure of Classified Defense Information

Although there is no specific norm that criminalizes all unauthorized disclosures of protected government information, the legal framework in these cases is based on a complex and often overlapping set of laws and individual provisions within norms. Criminal prosecutions for unauthorized disclosure often focus on the Espionage Act. The range of relevant offenses is extremely wide: from "classic espionage" cases involving imprisonment (where someone gathers information to assist a foreign government) to the lesser penalty of failure to report the mishandling or loss of protected information.

Under the Espionage Act and related legislation, the US prosecutes individuals with access to (and duty to protect) classified information who provided it to foreign agents, as well as foreign agents who unlawfully obtained classified information while in the United States. Criminal proceedings have also been instituted against individuals who sought to disclose protected information "altruistically" because they believed that they favored transparency in certain government activities for the sake of the public good. No person in US history has ever been exonerated on the grounds that the public interest in the leaked information was significant enough to justify an otherwise illegal disclosure. - So, if someone discloses protected information on the grounds that "the public has a right to know something" or "feels it necessary to disclose some sensitive information in the public interest", he must face criminal sanctions.

In the United States, no traditional news agency has ever been prosecuted for receiving and disseminating the leaked information, but criminal prosecution has been extended to include individuals who were not responsible for the original disclosure. – So, if a member of the government reports to his spouse about what was said there after the government meeting, and the latter makes this information public, the leaking spouse can be prosecuted.

Samuel Loring Morison became the first person to be convicted of selling classified documents to the media. The 1985 United States v. The judgment in Morison represented an important delineation of the conditions for conviction under the Espionage Act. Morison argued that he did not have the necessary intent for espionage because he passed the photos to a news agency and not to an agent of a foreign power. The fact that Morison was charged with leaking to the media, and that he apparently had no intention of passing sensitive information to enemy intelligence services, did not convince the jury or the courts that he was not guilty. However, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has come under some criticism on the grounds that such prosecutions may act as a deterrent to potential whistleblowers who may provide information that may be embarrassing to the government but vital to the public discourse. Upon leaving office, President Clinton pardoned Morison. - The judgment points out that, pursuant to Section 793(d) of the US Code, the crime of collecting, transmitting or losing defense information is also committed by anyone who discloses information related to national defense that he has reason to believe will be to the detriment of the United States or any foreign nation can be used for his benefit, intentionally disclosed, handed over, regardless of the fact that he did not share it with an agent of a foreign power, but "only" with a member of the media.

Shamai Leibowitz was sentenced in 2009 to 20 months in prison under US Code Section 798 for disclosing classified information - which he gave to a blogger. The media reported that Leibowitz released transcripts of conversations at the Israeli embassy in Washington that were intercepted by the FBI. He claimed that his intention was to expose abuses of office, not to harm national security, but he eventually pleaded guilty. - In other words, the fact that someone - according to his claim - discloses state secrets to the media for the sake of a "good cause" does not exempt him from the related legal consequences.

The case of Edward Snowden has already been detailed above. Information disclosed by a US-Russian whistleblower in the summer of 2013 provided insight into the extent of surveillance and espionage practices by intelligence agencies around the world. In the ongoing criminal case, Snowden is charged with felony counts of disclosure of classified information under US Code § 798 and US Code § 793, collection, transfer or loss of protected information. Russia granted Snowden citizenship in December 2022, making it impossible under the Russian Federation's constitution to extradite him to the United States.

Source: alaptorvenyblog.hu

Cover image: Illustration / Photo: Michael Schwarzenberger / Pixabay