The fired leaker, Mary McCarthy, is now under investigation by the Justice Department. The receipient of the leaker--Washington Post reporter Dana Priest--just won a Pulitzer prize for her reporting.
Hugh Hewitt asks some good questions that are worth thinking about:
If the CIA employee fired today for leaking highly classified material to the press had instead taken a computer and given it to a reporter, the reporter would be guilty of receiving stolen goods, right?
And if an Apple employee leaked key design and development info to a competitor, the competitor would be in the wrong, right?
So, how can the journalists recipient of the pilfered info be a hero?
Becaue the reporters' colleagues are reporting the news about the leak?
Because government needs watchdogs?
But what if the leaked information compromised an anti-terrorist operation, allowing terrorists to escape and strike U.S. interests, or the homeland, later?
