![]() ![]() But he thinks that if Congress was to act, it might overreach and impose highly restrictive measures that would prevent legitimate attempts to bring important information to public attention. Zaid said he believes the law should be turned into two separate statutes - one for spying and one for illegal leaking. The former National Security Agency contractor fled to Russia in 2013 shortly after leaking information about the NSA's bulk data collection program. The evidence was lacking."Įdward Snowden appears from Russia on a giant video screen in 2014. "They would have loved to have prosecuted them, but they couldn't. "When I first started representing individuals suspected of leaking classified information back in the mid-'90s, the government was never able to catch any of these people," said Zaid. Like Snowden and Manning, she's a young, junior-level figure who had access to highly classified material. She was arrested on June 3, just two days after the FBI was alerted to the leak. ![]() And she reportedly had email contact with The Intercept - the outlet that published the document. An anonymous letter was postmarked in Augusta, Ga., where she lives. The bureau says the NSA document was printed at her office. Winner has pleaded not guilty, though the FBI says she left a trail of bread crumbs. "Even though it's easier now to grab these documents, it is a lot easier for the government to track the documents," said Zaid. We've entered a new era with encryption apps, thumb drives and other technology that allows leakers to spread classified information in a click, he said. Zaid and others say the reason for the rise in prosecutions against suspected leakers is simple - technology. Reality Winner, a 25-year-old government contractor, is accused of divulging an NSA document that details Russian meddling in the U.S. Now the Trump administration is pursuing its own case. The act is sweeping and bars any disclosure of secrets that could harm the country's defense. The Obama administration used the Espionage Act to prosecute suspected national security leakers and now the Trump administration is doing the same. spy cases have been tried under the act, like the one against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted in 1951 of giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union and executed two years later.īut prosecutions have been relatively rare and limited almost entirely to spies - until recently. The law was intended for spies but has been used by the Obama and Trump administrations to prosecute suspected national security leakers.Ī hundred years ago this month, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act to deal with spying against the U.S. They were charged and convicted of giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union under the 1917 Espionage Act. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg attend their 1951 trial in New York.
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