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To this day, I can ask him "Hey, what was it you said were doing out in Arizona?" He'll just smile and say "I can't tell you that."
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Do people place Top Secret security clearance in the same category as GLO secrets?
The very worst-case GLO breach scenario -- web page with millions of hits, cover of TIME magazine -- would, at worst, cause distress, outrage, and sadness, and necessitate the rewriting of ritual that is deeply sentimental and inspiring to many people.
The worst-case Top Secret Security breach scenario -- information finding its way to Saddam Hussein or al-Qaeda -- would, at worst, cause the violent death of millions of innocent people, the overthrow of nations, and possibly global nuclear war.
I just don't put running the first risk (however small) in the same category as running the second risk (however small). Saying "both are bad and unacceptable" doesn't express the very different degrees of badness I see here. The first breacher possibly deserves to be kicked out of the GLO and sued for damages. The second breacher possibly deserves to be shot by a firing squad. Someone with Top Secret clearance is wrong to tell the secrets even if captured and tortured. But if Nazis captured me and held me over a vat of melted lead, I'd tell them all about what I did in college with a clear conscience.
Maybe this is my lawyer training, but when I look at bad acts, I see the million shades of gray that the law asks about. Even in the case of murder, the law asks, did you intend to cause the harm you did? Would a reasonable person in your position have felt physically threatened? Were you abused as a child? Did you kill the guy when you were extremely upset and not thinking clearly? Are you genuinely sorry for what you did and can you be trusted to never do it again? Every type of sentence, from the death penalty to total exoneration and every level in between, can follow the same act, depending on the answers to all those and other questions.
If I'm alone in my various opinions, that's cool (it certainly wouldn't be the first time! Just ask anyone who was in my Federal Jurisdiction class
). I'm just curious about where other people stand. Is revealing GLO secrets so evil that it deserves to be compared to revealing military secrets? Would you support the criminalization of sharing GLO secrets, as a state would be free to do?
Ivy