The Obama Administration has been warning government employees for awhile that they faced punishment for reading the WikiLeaks documents, but were they serious? As one State Department employee reports, they apparently were.
In a report released via TomDispatch.com yesterday, Peter Van Buren reports that he was “interrogated” by State Department officials and accused of “disclosing classified information.” He must’ve really done something bad for an allegation like that, right?
Not really… the beginning and the end of the “crime” committed by Van Buren was posting a blog entry linking to a WikiLeaks cable from 2009 about Sens. John McCain (R – AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R – SC) urging the US to help provide for Moammar Gadhafi’s security in Libya.
Not exactly earth-shattering, particularly since the cables were already released by WikiLeaks and were a matter of public knowledge. The Obama Administration has claimed, however, that even though the cables are available to the entire planet they’re still classified and therefore “off limits.”
What will ultimately come of the Van Buren investigation remains to be seen, though the interrogators did threaten him with criminal charges. Is this just a move to intimidate government employees, or will the administration start trying to toss government employees in prison for blogging about WikiLeaks?
Our government use to stamp all secure documents with a CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET or TOP SECRET stamp, in red, and on the cover and all copies of the secure documents. Today there is no identification required, because ignorance of the law (classification) is no excuse.
Obama has fulfilled his role. He was put in place to silence dissent and attack whistle-blowers. He has effectively done both. There are govt employee's who do actually view even looking at wikileaks at home as a punishable crime/treason … and many of these are individuals with no special clearance of their own. Sycophants, the lot of them. It's like they think their arse-kissing is going to curry them some special favor with the mgmt.
1984 is here, just a few years late.
What is the difference between Wikileaks and say a Tom Clancy novel?
I think a federal employee with a security clearance would lawfully be able to read either, although would not be at liberty of comment on them.
The government's contention that material in the public realm cannot be read by federal employees with security clearances amounts to censorship.
Why if the people in power are good do they hide everything from the people that pay for EVERTHING the tax payer.Without us they have nothing and there power is gone.