Obama has lost the war on leaks

From the beginning of his presidency, Obama’s Justice Department has moved to prevent just these types of leaks by aggressively rooting out individuals who share classified information with the press, and then making a spectacle out of their punishments once they’re caught. Before Obama took office, the federal government had invoked the 1917 Espionage Act against a total of three people for leaking to the press. In four and a half years, Obama’s administration has indicted six.

And yet, the administration has apparently failed to sufficiently scare whoever was behind the two big NSA leaks this week. They could still be caught and punished — but if the last six indictments weren’t enough to deter future leaks, it’s unlikely another one or two will do the trick.

While many sources are no doubt reasonably intimidated by the leak investigations, another, opposite idea has also gathered power: the notion that leakers and whistleblowers are the real heroes. It’s a line advanced by everyone from WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange to, in 2008, Obama, the idea that, as Greenwald wrote Thursday that “they did not act with any self-interest in mind. The opposite is true: they undertook great personal risk and sacrifice for one overarching reason: to make their fellow citizens aware of what their government is doing in the dark.”