leaks and the leakers who leak them

I was chasing up some stuff re Miguel's latest comments about sibel and 'counter-intelligence' and i stumbled across an old comment from 'Mike' (who i think is now 'Miguel'):

One issue you haven’t touched upon is, are the people in the American Turkish Council and AIPAC to whom Feith, Perle and Grossman are presumably passing U.S. classified info (including nuclear secrets) Turkish and Israeli intelligence operatives, or are they independent operators?

Sibel has often said that what she ran across as a translator was not old fashioned, state on state espionage, but something more nefarious. She seems to imply that organizations like American Turkish Council are intermediaries in the espionage game. In other words, secrets hypothetically are passed from the Pentagon to the ATC, for which cold cash would be paid. In turn the ATC hypothetically passes the secret on to the Turkish government.

But Edmonds has claimed classified information is being sold to “the highest bidder”. She told Scott Horton in the January, 05 interview that “they [semi-legit organizations] don't care who that 'highest bidder' is. It may be some fanatic, from certain countries we consider evil, or it may be some other country we consider Communist. It doesn't matter. If the highest bidder is coming up with the money, they provide it.” (This type of intelligence-gathering for sale on the black market is not unprecedented. This is one of the activities engaged in by BCCI)

So what it appears the whistleblower is saying is that these secrets are not necessarily going to Turkey and Israel. Which means one of two things:

- State and DoD officials are passing on secrets to ATC and AIPAC, knowing full well they could end up in the hands of American enemies like al-Qaeda.

-State and DoD officials assume the secrets they pass to “semi-legit” organizations are being sent to friendly countries like Israel and Turkey, but the intermediaries are untrustworthy wheeler dealers who are turning around and selling to whomever offers the most cash.

As much as I dislike Feith and Perle, I have to think the second scenario is more likely. Sibel has accused DOD and State officials of treason, but by treason she specifically told Horton it meant passing on secrets to “quasi-allies”.

interesting, no?

and i'm reminded of Larisa's categorization of 'leaks' - which i think is really important:

Strategic Military/Intelligence Leaks: Part of either disinformation campaign or allegiance. This is seen as legal as long as it does not put into peril our own security. An example of this would be those planted stories by military agents (disinformation) or leaks of tactical information to foreign agents we may be using in the field, an example may be MEK (allegiance).

Industrial Military/Intelligence Leaks - 'Enabled': this is what I describe as a leak that happens from the contractors end, with the blessing and/or support of certain people in the military/DOD structure for their own interests, but is in fact illegal and does in fact compromise our national security. An example of this would be what Sibel uncovered.

Industrial Military/Intelligence Leaks - 'Solo': same as above, but done without the approval/blessing of any insider. Stealing secrets from military/DOD to essentially make money. A good example of this is the codes Chalabi got a hold of and sold to Iran.

Nationalistic/Ideological Military/Intelligence Leaks: This would be where an agent of another country infiltrates our own military/intelligence infrastructure. A spy essentially or mole. Larry Franklin case might fall here, as he was not acting as a mercenary.

Political Military/Intelligence Leaks: Leaks that are politically motivated, that is not to say that there cannot be multiple reasons, such as "enabled" but the public best knows these cases as 'political hits' - the outing of Valerie Plame is the best example.

Obviously the scenario miguel outlines above clouds the issue a little bit/lot - larisa's leaks only consider the motivation of the leaker, not the (ultimate) motivation of the leakee, or the (unintended) leakage of the leak. (i think i just used 5 versions of the same word in one sentence - is that a record?)

i once tried to build a model of leaks and leakees and whatnot (i didnt publish it) - it might be interesting to revisit that...