"redc1c4" wrote in message
...
Daryl Hunt wrote:

"DDAY" wrote in message
ink.net...
----------
In article . net,
Tankfixer
wrote:

Look up the example of the classified history of the CIA's
involvement
in
the Iranian coup in the 1950s. Short story: the classified
document
was
leaked and put on the web. The government did nothing.

Depends who leaks it I supose.. ;')

Not really. Publishing classified material is not illegal in the
United
States, with a finite exception--the names of covert intelligence
officers
currently based overseas. This is based upon long precedent and the
belief
in the United States that a functioning democracy requires a free
press
that
can publish information that the government does not want released.

It's a little more complicated for leaking classified information to
the
press. In general, that's not actually illegal--99.999% of people who
do
it
get an administrative punishment (i.e. they get fired, fined, or lose
their
security clearance). They don't go to jail. Only one person has gone
to
jail for this, Samuel Loring Morrison, back in the 1980s. There is
currently a case before the courts where the government is trying to
convict
two people for accepting classified information and making if public.
Whether they will be convicted of that is an open question.

Put it this way:

Person A, a govt. employee, gives classified information to a foreign
govt.
He goes to jail for espionage.

Person B, a govt. employee, gives classified information to a
newspaper
and
gets caught. He gets fired or given an administrative punishment. It
is
highly unlikely that he will go to jail. (And it is worth remembering
that
top level officials leak classified information all the time. People
in
the
White House leak information to newspapers to make the White House
look
better. That's how the game is played in Washington.)

The newspaper publishes classified information. Nothing happens to
them.


If you're interested in learning about the subject, go to the FAS
website
and read multiple issues of Secrecy and Government Bulletin.
You'll
get a
sense of the limitations concerning the press and classified
information.

I may give them a look.

Read up on the AIPAC case.

If it's not on the Internet or it doesn't agree with Tinkerbelle then
it's
untrue. You are wasting your time with that low level troll.

tell us again about the Air Force flying P-38's in the 1950's.

redc1c4,
then we'll get into the *real* howlers.... %-)

You prove me wrong. You have yet to do that. You weren't even a twinkle in
your daddy's eye in 53.