A 25-year-old federal contractor is facing charges she leaked a classified National Security Agency document to a news outlet in May.
She had a top secret clearance (not that that is anything these days because just about anyone can get one if their company pays for it). But what about this new continuous monitoring we heard so much about?? Apparently she was over-the-top in her anti-Trump politics and social media comments. Shouldn’t such openly discussed antipathy for the President of the U.S. be an automatic disqualifier for anyone??! You can read some of her rants on other sites that, due to keeping this professional, shall not be posted here.
I don’t understand why individuals will pursue a career only to turn around and leak classified information that they swore to protect. Why go through the long and tedious process only to betray national interest? None of us are going to agree 100 percent with politics, policies, or procedures. However, it’s perfectly clear that the job is not about agreeing, it’s about honoring the commitment made. In my humble opinion, I feel like there should be consistent and stiffer penalties for individuals who leak classified information.
The rationalizations are often quite interesting and varied. Besides $$$, there are those who harbor misplaced and “romantic” attachments to a particular foreign country (Cuba, Israel, etc.), a desire to "prove " to their superiors that they can make good spies (Kampiles, etc.), or a belief that they have a “mission” to influence US foreign policy (Winner, Snepp, etc.), and that, for that purpose, they can be the judge of what classified information needs to be disclosed in order to further that “higher mission”…