Washington – The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has begun a series of hearings on unauthorized disclosures of classified information that may lead to legislation providing more effective ways to prosecute leakers.
The panel’s chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., said that he does not have any specific legislation in mind but that he wants to find ways “to protect the public’s right to know and at the same time protect the intelligence community that needs to be more secure.”
He told colleagues that tightening statutes barring release of classified information could accompany so-called shield-law bills now before Congress that are aimed at protecting journalists from being forced to disclose sources.
Such shield laws “could have serious implications if passed without exceptions for those occasions when our national security is at risk,” Hoekstra said in July. “The time has come for a comprehensive law that will make it easier for the government to prosecute wrongdoers and increase the penalties which hopefully will act as a deterrent for people thinking about disclosing information.”
The action in the committee comes as special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald continues a federal investigation into the public disclosure of the status of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame, a probe that has kept New York Times reporter Judith Miller in jail since July for refusing to disclose sources, although she did not write about Plame.
Rep. Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the panel, said she agreed with Hoekstra that the time had come to make it easier to find and prosecute leakers of classified information, “but only consistent with the First Amendment.”
She also said the panel’s hearings will look into whether the government is overzealous in classifying information, leading government employees to disregard secrecy rules.
The House panel’s first leak hearing took place behind closed doors Sept. 14, with testimony from an unnamed “representative of the intelligence community,” a committee statement said.
