Espionage by any other name
By Tony Blankley
Published January 19, 2005


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This week in the New Yorker magazine Seymour Hersh wrote the following words: "The administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran ... Much of the focus is on accumulation of intelligence and targeting information on Iranian nuclear, chemical and missile sites ... [The] American commando task force has been set up in South Asia and is now working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists and technicians who had dealt with Iranian counterparts ... The American task force ... has been penetrating eastern Iran from Afghanistan in a hunt for underground installations ... The task force members, or their locally recruited agents, secreted remote detection devices."

18 United States Code section 794, subsection (b) prohibits anyone "in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy [from publishing] any information with respect to the movement, numbers, or disposition of any of the Armed Forces ... of the United States... or supposed plans or conduct of any ... military operations ... or any other information relating to the public defense, which might be useful to the enemy ... [this crime is punishable] by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life."

Subsection (a) of that statute prohibits anyone "with ... reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, communicates ... to any representative, officer, agent, employee, subject, or citizen thereof, either directly or indirectly, any information relating to the national defense, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life."

I am not an expert on these federal code sections, but a common-sense reading of their language would suggest, at the least, that federal prosecutors should review the information disclosed by Mr. Hersh to determine whether or not his conduct falls within the proscribed conduct of the statute.

In the fairly recent past, at least one journalist writing for Jane's Publications has been successfully prosecuted under the statute, freedom of speech and the press not being a defense to espionage. Remember, in the famous Pentagon Papers case, the issue was prior restraint. Could the government stop a newspaper from publishing government secrets relating not to current operations, but to prior planning? The answer then was no. But in the current matter of Mr. Hersh and the New Yorker, they have been free to publish the article. The question is whether or not any legal consequences attach to that decision.

I was shocked when I read Mr. Hersh's article. Note the tenses he uses to describe American military action: "The American commando task force ... is now working," "has been conducting secret reconnaissance." In other words, Mr. Hersh is revealing to all the world, including the Iranian government, that our commandos are currently behind enemy lines in Iran on a dangerous and vital military assignment.

Moreover, he helps the enemy by writing that our commandos have been "penetrating eastern Iran from Afghanistan." That considerably reduces the areas the Iranian military and counterintelligence forces have to search and monitor to try to catch our brave commandos.

Furthermore, Mr. Hersh informs the world that our commandos are working with certain Pakistani scientists who had previously worked with Iranian scientists. Such information might further assist the Iranian security forces in their investigations. After all, there can't be that many Iranian nuclear scientists who worked with the few Pakistani nuclear scientists in the past. Mr. Hersh has virtually given Iranian intelligence the names (if not the addresses) of the Pakistani scientists who are working with our forces from their jumping-off places in Pakistan.

Finally Mr. Hersh helpfully writes that our commandos have been working with local Iranian agents to plant detection devices around known or suspected nuclear plants. This gives the enemy insights into our commandos' specific method of operation and alerts Iranian intelligence to be looking for local Iranians as well as Americans.

Not a bad day's work for yet another patriotic American journalist.

Almost as appalling as the potentially lethal effect (if not, necessarily, the intent) of the Hersh article, is the quietude that greeted the damaging implications of the article's publication.

Whether or not the article meets the technical legal requirements for violation of the Espionage Act, I have seen no articles or public comments expressing concern at the revelation of such vital military secrets of an ongoing secret military operation. Keep in mind, the Pentagon has not denied the story; it has merely said that some of the facts are inaccurate.

That is a classic Washington non-denial denial.

And this is not just any military operation. The purpose of this operation is to protect the world from a possible nuclear attack once the fanatical Iranian Islamist regime gets its hands on a nuclear bomb. They already have missiles capable of reaching London, Paris, Berlin and Tel Aviv. They are already the world's leading terrorist-supporting state. And our military's effort to prepare to deal with this extraordinary danger is exposed to the world -- while the operation is ongoing.

But not a peep of concern can be heard. Apparently this is considered just journalistic business as usual. The Washington political class is suffering from a bad case of creeping normalcy. We are getting ever more used to ever more egregious government leaks of military secrets. What's the big deal? Maybe I am an alarmist. Or maybe we are sleepwalking toward the abyss.


-Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. His column appears on Wednesdays. E-mail: tblankley@washingtontimes.com



www.washingtontimes.com . . .

Karma + AntiFrench


Deshhhpicable!

Fuck froggystan - muzzies wretched bitch!

Boycott froggystan!

Seymour Hersh should fry even if the story turns out to be false.

Burn Seymour burn in hell because your intent was to compromise the US military.

K+ Anti-french

i understand these fucks didn't get to place their socialist candidate in the white house, and they're sored for it, but this is so ridiculous!!!!!


i just don't understand why these liberal journalist abate the enemy so earnestly,sometimes i think they take their 1000 year lasting democrat-rule obsession too fanaticaly.

This is treason. He should be shot by a death squad. Dissent and voicing your opinions is fine, but comprising the security of the men and women defending America is unforgivable.

When was the last time anyone was convicted of treason under those laws? I'm 62 years old and don't remember anyone, including Henoi Jane Fonda, who should have been shot years ago for her actions. Most recently, the American new reporter that televised US troop positions and actions in Iraq should also have been shot for treason, or more likely, stupidity.

Since September 11, 2001, the open expression of patriotism in the United States has taken on new energy. The American flag, the symbol of our pride in and love for our country is everywhere.

But not every American shares this pride of country. In the past, a few have betrayed the United States as spies for foreign governments, and some have joined in wars on the side of America's enemies. These acts are considered treason.

Today, in the aftermath of the first foreign attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor, the U.S. is faced with an American who chose loyalty to the foreign forces who brought about that horrific attack-John Walker Lindh (see sidebar). This high-profile case has brought the issue of treason to the forefront and back in the headlines.

What is treason?

Considered the greatest of all offenses against the United States, the U.S. Constitution describes treason as the act of taking up arms against the United States or helping its enemies. It is the only crime identified specifically in the U.S. Constitution.

Under federal law, a person convicted of treason is considered a traitor, and may be punished with a sentence of as little as five years in prison and as severe as death.

Treason is very difficult to prove in a court of law. The founding fathers of our country established the standard for proving the crime of treason high to avoid the abuses of British law, which they left England to escape. Under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, a person can be convicted of treason in the following two ways: (1) on the testimony of two eyewitnesses to the same act, or (2) by a confession from the accused in open court. Because the crime is so difficult to prove, there have been fewer than 40 federal prosecutions for treason in America's history and even fewer convictions

www.njsbf.com . . .

The news media now views its role, guaranteed by the constitution, as being the 4th branch of the government -- essentially, it's role is to oppose the government. This is a self-delusion which has gone to far. Freedom of speech is protected by the constitution -- but not the freedom to provide the country's political adversaries with military intelligence.

Oooo, this story made Reason Hit and Run! Who knew Matt Welch was a regular FFer?