Justus For All

I have been thinking today what, if anything, I wanted to say about the Mary McCarthy leak story.

I actually agree with her premise that there are times when a person’s moral code demands the breaking of laws. In this case, she has argued that her oath to the constitution superceded her oath to not reveal secrets.

However, just because there are times when this is true, that doesn’t mean that this was one of those times.

I don’t think we have to go into whether or not the practices of the CIA were proper or not to evaluate this case, I think we only have to look at her behavior and what she did and didn’t do to see if she was acting by a higher moral code or not. In other words, even if we accept fully the premise that her oath to the Constituation demanded action on this case, I don’t think a compelling case can be made that she acted properly.

The first consideration is that their are established methods for a member of the CIA to blow the whistle. There are ways the members of the intelligence comittee can be informed of what is going on, and investigations can be started and oversight maintained. I have seen absolutely nothing that indicates Mary McCarthy attempted to do this.

One can certainly imagine though that someone could attempt to do this and either be unable to get the information to congress, or be unsatisfied with congressional response and still absolutely convinced that immoral activity was taking place and that the only recourse was the court of public opinion.

If that were the case, a whistleblower should be willing to not only inform the press, but to openly inform the press. This is important because if the public has a right to know the governments secrets, then it also has a right to know who is revealing them so that motives can be examined. For example, large contributions to a political party could be relevant. Being open also demonstrates that one is motivated by conscious. It is an acknowledgement and public display that one has violated a law and one’s oath and is asking for mercy based on extenuating circumstance. It is being ‘courageous’ and willing to pay the price if necessary. Leaking secrets anonymously is cowardice, not courage.

Elected officials, are the people most directly charged with maintaining the morality of our government, and also the most responsible for protecting our physical security. They are the ones who have the duty to decide what should and should not be secret. A CIA employee should be very careful making this decision for themselves, and willing to pay the price for their actions.

Mary McCarthy is not an honorable whistleblower. She is a dishonorable leaker who got caught and is trying to pretend to be honorable to avoid penalty.