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"But the case has also generated concerns among some within the U.S. intelligence community that top Justice Department officials — stung by criticism that they

"But the case has also generated concerns among some within the U.S. intelligence community that top Justice Department officials — stung by criticism that they have been overzealous in pursuing leak cases — may now be more reluctant to bring criminal charges involving unauthorized disclosures to the news media, the sources said. One source, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said there was concern 'there is no longer an appetite at Justice for these cases.'" Aren't these comments themselves probably unauthorized disclosures to the news media?

privong 12y ago
> Aren't these comments themselves probably unauthorized disclosures to the news media? Offically, yes. In practice, no. My understanding is that government orgs need some amount of non-official contact with journalists in order to get information out to the public. That is partly so they can make favorable information disclosures without it seeming official. One could view the comment you quoted as an attempt to slightly improve the image of the Justice Dept and intelligence community without risking those entities appearing to be "soft on crime" (which is what would likely happen if they issued an official statment).
- x0x0 12y ago
  assuming that the comments are those that the directors of the nsa or cia like, then it's an authorized disclosure. Only the delusional would view either org as soft on leakers.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- bediger4000 12y ago
  Whoa whoa whoa! Now we're getting deep into what used to be called "Kremlinology". Back in the depths of the Cold War (and even today, from North Korea) the Soviet government would issue "news" that was blatantly untrue manure, and nothing else. So people would try to divine real meaning from arcane aspects of the untrue manure. If they need to "make favorable information disclosures without it seeming official", and they need to improve their image without appearing to be "soft on crime", they should just say so, rather than making unofficial official statements and jumping through flaming semantics hoops like linguistic circus lions. We know those TLAs are rogue, but if we need to apply Kremlinology to understand them, they've lost their moral and linguistic anchors as well.
  - mpyne 12y ago
    Except that leaks to the press as a way of trying to control a story (or to simply play bureaucratic knife fights) is a DC art as old as time. Such things happen in other countries including Russia, though the Kremlin promulgating "blatantly untrue" material isn't quite the same as leaking stories to the press...
    - bediger4000 12y ago
      Except that these unofficial official leaks are now in the Sacred Homeland Security arena! Think of the children! Terrorist must not triumph! If you give them an inch they'll abuse a mile of it right into the ground! Seriously, off the record stuff about unemployment statistics is one thing. Leaking stuff about drones and TSA and so forth is entirely another, or so we're told. Isn't James Risen in the doghouse over exactly that sort of thing?
  - frandroid 12y ago
    > they've lost their moral and linguistic anchors as well. Whoa whoa whoa, I thought the intelligence apparatus was a benevolent entity!
  - privong 12y ago
    I was not justifying their method (or even saying that the unofficial/unauthorized leaks were truthful), merely offering a possible explanation of why they are allowed to happen (or, likely, encouraged). When I said "favorable information disclosures", I meant favorable to the agency involved, not necessarily to anybody else.
  - abecedarius 12y ago
    "White House Kremlinology" is a phrase I first ran into a decade ago; you can google it. I hate that this is the state of things, but it is.
  - rdtsc 12y ago
    The main goals of these "hints" is to 1) Release the information to the public. 2) Not be on the official record of releasing such information. Maybe Justice Dept. doesn't want to be on the record about not towing the party line or not being "tough" on leakers, but at the same time, it perceives the public is getting a little fed up with these NSA shenanigans. So they don't want to make it official, as it would seem as the executive branch is devided in its public stance. So they test the waters by releaseing an "anonymous" hint like that and then see what happens. This also, interestingly, can serve as a hint-hint to the NSA management to tone it down a bit, as Obama is getting some bad rap about this and so on. Sometimes the most direct message is not a direct message but through an anonymous hint like this. (Directed both at media, people but also government agencies as well). This is nothing new and is tried and true PR technique.
jessaustin 12y ago
After reading enough of these unchallenged self-serving not-responsible-for-deliberate-lies voice-of-pretend-authority that's-not-piss-in-your-ear-it's-rain official-unofficial off-the-record comments, one concludes that they never have an ounce of truth to them, so the parties that theoretically would care about unauthorized disclosures are right to ignore them completely. [EDIT] Wow, there must be a bunch of "journalists" on HN! Never mind me, just go back to parroting exactly what TPTB tell you, but not for attribution, so that none of the lies you tell on their behalf can be challenged.
- colordrops 12y ago
  Besides the content of your post, you are being downvoted because your comment is nearly impossible to parse and comes off as pretentious. Grammatically standard English would serve better to get your point across.
  - alexbecker 12y ago
    Fewer hyphens might also be in order.
    - ephemeralgomi 12y ago
      I thought it was a TempleOS post at first.
      - jessaustin 12y ago
        Hahaha well that's an accomplishment of sorts. b^)
smsm42 12y ago
I guess there are different types. Telling journalists water-cooler rumors and generics is one thing, leaking them classified docs is another. The latter probably is pursued much more vigorously than the first, even though technically the first may be policy violation too.
pessimizer 12y ago
"Unnamed sources" can usually be considered officially floated statements when coming from any major media outlet. If major news organizations printed anonymous sources in the administration saying things both that 1) didn't have any component that can be factually verified and 2) were not something that the administration wanted to release, they'd find themselves in enough trouble enough of the time that it would become difficult to do their jobs or stay profitable. edit: they're really not anything that actual journalists should be including in their stories. Sadly, these quotes from unnamed sources are often the entire story.
drewcrawford 12y ago
This is probably a trial balloon [1], a tactic of leaking information in order to gauge the reaction. For a long time in US foreign crime/terrorism policy there has been a sense of "find our enemies, no matter where they are, no matter the cost." Changing that positioning would be a big U-turn in rhetoric. By floating this change under the guise of "sources close to the matter", they get to gauge the reaction of interested parties while maintaining cover of deniability if it's poorly-received. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_balloon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_balloon
- MichaelMoser123 12y ago
  is yahoo.com good enough to function as a trial baloon (does this publication have access to effective actors, does it have enough clout), or do you need the New York Times for that?
  - pera 12y ago
    Is at least good enough to see the reaction here in HN, hypothetically speaking.
  - cafard 12y ago
    The NY Times is well aware of what is published on line. So are the remaining metropolitan daily newspapers.
arh68 12y ago
Yes, but the classification laws were always known to apply to pawns. The rules don't matter higher up, they never have. Use of force trickles down, not up. If you were in power, would you really limit your propaganda to what's publicly known? What could possibly be the repercussion of selectively leaking to your advantage?

privong 12y ago

> Aren't these comments themselves probably unauthorized disclosures to the news media? Offically, yes. In practice, no. My understanding is that government orgs need some amount of non-official contact with journalists in order to get information out to the public. That is partly so they can make favorable information disclosures without it seeming official. One could view the comment you quoted as an attempt to slightly improve the image of the Justice Dept and intelligence community without risking those entities appearing to be "soft on crime" (which is what would likely happen if they issued an official statment).

x0x0 12y ago
assuming that the comments are those that the directors of the nsa or cia like, then it's an authorized disclosure. Only the delusional would view either org as soft on leakers.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
bediger4000 12y ago
Whoa whoa whoa! Now we're getting deep into what used to be called "Kremlinology". Back in the depths of the Cold War (and even today, from North Korea) the Soviet government would issue "news" that was blatantly untrue manure, and nothing else. So people would try to divine real meaning from arcane aspects of the untrue manure. If they need to "make favorable information disclosures without it seeming official", and they need to improve their image without appearing to be "soft on crime", they should just say so, rather than making unofficial official statements and jumping through flaming semantics hoops like linguistic circus lions. We know those TLAs are rogue, but if we need to apply Kremlinology to understand them, they've lost their moral and linguistic anchors as well.
- mpyne 12y ago
  Except that leaks to the press as a way of trying to control a story (or to simply play bureaucratic knife fights) is a DC art as old as time. Such things happen in other countries including Russia, though the Kremlin promulgating "blatantly untrue" material isn't quite the same as leaking stories to the press...
  - bediger4000 12y ago
    Except that these unofficial official leaks are now in the Sacred Homeland Security arena! Think of the children! Terrorist must not triumph! If you give them an inch they'll abuse a mile of it right into the ground! Seriously, off the record stuff about unemployment statistics is one thing. Leaking stuff about drones and TSA and so forth is entirely another, or so we're told. Isn't James Risen in the doghouse over exactly that sort of thing?
- frandroid 12y ago
  > they've lost their moral and linguistic anchors as well. Whoa whoa whoa, I thought the intelligence apparatus was a benevolent entity!
- privong 12y ago
  I was not justifying their method (or even saying that the unofficial/unauthorized leaks were truthful), merely offering a possible explanation of why they are allowed to happen (or, likely, encouraged). When I said "favorable information disclosures", I meant favorable to the agency involved, not necessarily to anybody else.
- abecedarius 12y ago
  "White House Kremlinology" is a phrase I first ran into a decade ago; you can google it. I hate that this is the state of things, but it is.
- rdtsc 12y ago
  The main goals of these "hints" is to 1) Release the information to the public. 2) Not be on the official record of releasing such information. Maybe Justice Dept. doesn't want to be on the record about not towing the party line or not being "tough" on leakers, but at the same time, it perceives the public is getting a little fed up with these NSA shenanigans. So they don't want to make it official, as it would seem as the executive branch is devided in its public stance. So they test the waters by releaseing an "anonymous" hint like that and then see what happens. This also, interestingly, can serve as a hint-hint to the NSA management to tone it down a bit, as Obama is getting some bad rap about this and so on. Sometimes the most direct message is not a direct message but through an anonymous hint like this. (Directed both at media, people but also government agencies as well). This is nothing new and is tried and true PR technique.

jessaustin 12y ago

After reading enough of these unchallenged self-serving not-responsible-for-deliberate-lies voice-of-pretend-authority that's-not-piss-in-your-ear-it's-rain official-unofficial off-the-record comments, one concludes that they never have an ounce of truth to them, so the parties that theoretically would care about unauthorized disclosures are right to ignore them completely. [EDIT] Wow, there must be a bunch of "journalists" on HN! Never mind me, just go back to parroting exactly what TPTB tell you, but not for attribution, so that none of the lies you tell on their behalf can be challenged.

colordrops 12y ago
Besides the content of your post, you are being downvoted because your comment is nearly impossible to parse and comes off as pretentious. Grammatically standard English would serve better to get your point across.
- alexbecker 12y ago
  Fewer hyphens might also be in order.
  - ephemeralgomi 12y ago
    I thought it was a TempleOS post at first.
    - jessaustin 12y ago
      Hahaha well that's an accomplishment of sorts. b^)

smsm42 12y ago

I guess there are different types. Telling journalists water-cooler rumors and generics is one thing, leaking them classified docs is another. The latter probably is pursued much more vigorously than the first, even though technically the first may be policy violation too.

pessimizer 12y ago

"Unnamed sources" can usually be considered officially floated statements when coming from any major media outlet. If major news organizations printed anonymous sources in the administration saying things both that 1) didn't have any component that can be factually verified and 2) were not something that the administration wanted to release, they'd find themselves in enough trouble enough of the time that it would become difficult to do their jobs or stay profitable. edit: they're really not anything that actual journalists should be including in their stories. Sadly, these quotes from unnamed sources are often the entire story.

drewcrawford 12y ago

This is probably a trial balloon [1], a tactic of leaking information in order to gauge the reaction. For a long time in US foreign crime/terrorism policy there has been a sense of "find our enemies, no matter where they are, no matter the cost." Changing that positioning would be a big U-turn in rhetoric. By floating this change under the guise of "sources close to the matter", they get to gauge the reaction of interested parties while maintaining cover of deniability if it's poorly-received. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_balloon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_balloon

MichaelMoser123 12y ago
is yahoo.com good enough to function as a trial baloon (does this publication have access to effective actors, does it have enough clout), or do you need the New York Times for that?
- pera 12y ago
  Is at least good enough to see the reaction here in HN, hypothetically speaking.
- cafard 12y ago
  The NY Times is well aware of what is published on line. So are the remaining metropolitan daily newspapers.

arh68 12y ago

Yes, but the classification laws were always known to apply to pawns. The rules don't matter higher up, they never have. Use of force trickles down, not up. If you were in power, would you really limit your propaganda to what's publicly known? What could possibly be the repercussion of selectively leaking to your advantage?