The root of the prosecution for distributing secrets lies in the espionage act (plus amendments). When I say someone is a spy I mean "someone sold secrets to a

The root of the prosecution for distributing secrets lies in the espionage act (plus amendments). When I say someone is a spy I mean "someone sold secrets to a foreign power". When a US judge says someone is a spy it roughly means "someone divulged classified information and/or ..<list of things>..". The law considers divulging secrets as espionage because loose lips sink ships: using the espionage act to prosecute anyone posing a threat to national security is the easiest (and practical) way to make a danger harmless. The main issue with defining espionage like this is the logical confusion that creates in people: quoting Daniel Ellsberg "the current state of whistleblowing prosecutions under the Espionage Act makes a truly fair trial wholly unavailable to an American who has exposed classified wrongdoing". It's not my job to rule if someone is a whistleblower, a spy, or someone who protests against things he deems wrong through the disclosure of classified material. What I know is that the US law is bad because it does not distinguish between "someone who sold secrets to a foreign power" and "someone who divulged classified information": these are fundamentally different (illegal) things. The whole situation gets worse when anybody gets to read stuff like "5. FBI told plaintiff they could not afford another Snowden" and "6. FBI steal plaintiff's cell phone and passport" (https://imgur.com/RMJk7QC https://imgur.com/RMJk7QC). It's ironic that the onion is "ciadotgov + 4SJW + __ ".