Sunday, September 9, 2012

Have Americans Died From Intelligence Leaks?

CIA Memorial Wall. Wikipedia

Has an Intelligence Leak Ever Caused an American Death? -- Brian Palmer, Slate

Estimating the human cost of loose lips.

The Defense Department is threatening to sue former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, whose pseudonymously published book about the killing of Osama bin Laden went on sale this week. Pentagon officials say the book, No Easy Day, reveals classified information and puts American lives at risk. Has the disclosure of classified information ever led directly to an American death?

Possibly. There have been attacks and assassinations after intelligence leaks, but the causal link is difficult to prove. Consider the killing of CIA station chief Richard Welch, gunned down in Athens, Greece, by Marxist terrorists in 1975. The Athens News had outed Welch a month before the killing, and U.S. officials suspected that disaffected former CIA agent Philip Agee was responsible for the leak.

Read more ....

My Comment: When Americans were able to decrypt intelligence from the enemy during wartime .... people died. I can only assume the same for the other side, that when they are able to garner info from our own intelligence leaks .... people (Americans) will die.

No comments: