In Washington, the accepted method for passing along information about how the government fails to meet real-world needs is to leak it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Usually you kind of give the President a pass on leaking confidential stuff.
Leaks and whispers are a daily routine of news-gathering in Washington.
There should be at least one leak like the Pentagon Papers every year.
The Obama administration appears to regard intelligence leaks and briefings more or less like briefings by the Democratic National Committee or White House flack Jay Carney. You use any information at hand, classified or not, and you spin it any way you like, fairly or not.
The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
White House leaks of classified information put the lives of U.S. service members, intelligence officers, and civilians at risk. That's why I support a measure passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee to crack down on such leaks.
I don't think it's any secret that the public has lost confidence in the state government, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done on issues related to public integrity.
As leakers take great risks in releasing information, assuring them that they are not sacrificing themselves in vain and that their leaks would have public consequences would most likely encourage more people to leak.
That's the thing about leaks: sometimes they aren't misinterpreted or false.
It is up to the government to keep the government's secrets.