All the legal tools are there for a crackdown but no modern administration seems willing to exercise them.
First, it's illegal to PUBLISH, TRANSFER and DISSEMINATE Classified information. Every publisher who does so should be imprisoned for no less than 20 years and depending on the nature of the information, hanging.
Second, be willing to reduce the sentence by 1/2 for the publisher/reporter IF they give up their source.
Yep, the leaker and then the publisher all need to be locked up at the very least. I have a feeling that this will be treated as importantly as illegal aliens though.
Probably not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States
Highly irresponsible maybe, probably not illegal though.
No, it's not -- unless you have a security clearance, which requires you to agree to those conditions. Then, it's a criminal offense.
But, for someone without the requisite security clearance, there's no penalties unless the government can meet a rather heavy burden of proof to justify prior restraint.
This issue is essentially settled law, as a result of the Pentagon Papers case back in the 70's. In that instance, the military analyst that leaked the report was prosecuted and convicted, but the injunction against the news media was lifted, by order of the US Supreme Court.
Don't worry...the current regime will have no problem "exercising" the "tools" for a "crackdown"...the problem is, will any crackdown be targeting the actual trouble--or just use it as justification.
With a Traitor in the White House Oval Office.....
hell this was probably started from the White House to make it easier to get out of Afghanistan. The cries of massacre and human rights violations are starting already.