The CIA is asking the Justice Department for a criminal probe into the leak of real, sensitive national intelligence information regarding actual covert CIA operations. The kind of information that could easily have cost CIA agents in the field their lives. Those prisons were secret for a reason and I doubt it was torture. There’s a phrase widely used in computer security, “security through obscurity” – you don’t have to worry about being attacked if no one knows where you are. So the Justice Department may, appropriately, investigate. Meanwhile, back at the ranch…or the Capitol…
Republican leaders, meanwhile, have asked the intelligence committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate to investigate who leaked information to the Post about the prisons.
Gee, that’s bright, because my list of suspects would start with….
John D. Rockefeller IV
Carl Levin, Michigan
Dianne Feinstein, California
Ron Wyden, Oregon
Evan Bayh, Indiana
Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland
Jon S. Corzine, New Jersey
Harry Reid, Nevada
Clearly Bill Frist needs to appoint a special committee to investigate this, as those most likely to have access to the information and with the most political motive for leaking it are the very people he has asked to investigate the leak. If a special prosecutor is ever appropriate to investigate the Executive Branch, certainly those under suspicion, or who should be under suspicion, in the Legislative shouldn’t be allowed to investigate themselves.
CIA seeks investigation of secret prisons leak – official – Forbes.com