Will Obama prosecute huge intelligence leak?

[FluffyMcDeath]

We shall have to wait and see (and wait and wait and wait...)

 

[Glaucus]

You realize that when the US closed the embassies due to a perceived heightened security threat, that would have blown any covert eavesdropping that was done recently. Al Qaeda would know instantly they were compromised and would naturally want to investigate how that was done. This leak may or may not actually specify the true method the US was able to uncover their plots. In other words, this leak may act as a cover for other covert activities that won't get leaked. This 20 al-Qaeda conference call seemed kinda weird to me from the start.​

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

You realize that when the US closed the embassies due to a perceived heightened security threat, that would have blown any covert eavesdropping that was done recently.​

Or Al-Qaeda had a conference call to see what the Americans would do and find that a quick and effective way to cast the US millions of dollars - or the embassy thing was bullshit and so is the leak and someone just needed to be looking like they were doing something useful. But, if the US had emptied the embassies and no-one leaked that they had actually got on the conference call then Al-Qaeda could have guessed that they were tapped but they wouldn't have known. It could have been the "chatter" that the NSA was claiming. It could have been a mole. Maybe it WAS a mole and they leaked that they intercepted the call instead so as to save the mole. This is spy-craft after all. Deception is part of the game.

So - everybody already pretty much knows they are being listened to therefore a leak is not a leak would fit with Snowden too. The same laws were broken so why no investigation, arrest and trial? It doesn't matter if the information could reasonably be expected to be known. Remember the story we had a while back where intelligence people were being told not to access the Guardian documents from Snowden because the documents were still classified they would have to reclassify machines that accessed that information. Just because other people know it doesn't mean you can just blab it to the media.

 

[Glaucus]

It all depends how the laws are written and how things get classified. For all we know everything leaked was properly and legally declassified. It's their call, they can do that.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

It all depends how the laws are written and how things get classified. For all we know everything leaked was properly and legally declassified. It's their call, they can do that.

That's true, like with Valerie Plame.