Upsetting the Applecart

Under the catergory "chutzpah": The Men in Black (=FBI) this week raided the home of former Justice Department lawyer Thomas M. Tamm, who previously worked in Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR)—the top secret unit that oversees surveillance of terrorist and espionage targets.

Tamm is suspect because he is accused of leaking information about the agency's warrantless spying program to the press.

Newsweek reports, "The agents seized Tamm's desktop computer, two of his children's laptops and a cache of personal files." Two unnamed legal sources said "the raid was related to a Justice criminal probe into who leaked details of the warrantless eavesdropping program to the news media (Looking for a Leaker.)"

This guy should be a hero, and be protected under federal whistleblowing laws.

Ditto the case of Lt. Cmdr Matthew Diaz, the 18-yr. Navy veteran and Guantanamo Bay attorney who could no longer remain silent about the abuses he saw there. He is a man of conscience who faced 14 years for leaking the names of all Guantanamo detainees -- many of whom had been held incommunicado for years -- to human rights lawyers.

Diaz said, "I think a good case could be made for allegations of war crimes, policies that were war crimes," he said. "There was a way to do this properly, and we're not doing it properly." Absolutely damning, and yet that hero is serving six months in the brig (Moral Decision Jeopardizes Navy Lawyer's Career.)

But apparently, only some leaks are o.k. -- think Scooter Libby, think Karl Rove, think Valerie Plame.

Some leaks -- those which leak on the creaky, leaky programs which don't have a legal leg to stand on -- those leaks are bad. Those leaks threaten to buckle the tenuous house of cards this administration has constructed to encroach upon our civil liberties under the name of battling the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

Atty. Tamm should not be the focus of investigation, the President should be the focus of an investigation. Libby outed CIA agent Plame, and he is the hero of the Right. Are these people's moral compasses so out of whack that they think the highest good is protecting their own back-room machinations?

Security classifications are not designed to hide government illegality. We as citizens have a responsibility to "leak" if illegality is involved. This is a more important battlefield than the streets of Baghdad.

--Jim and Lisa