Jack Kingston

Before my first deployment to the Middle East I went through the arduous task of getting a Top Secret clearance. After filling out mounds of paperwork I had to inform my family and friends that investigative officials would be paying them a visit. A full year later I received a TS clearance and could breathe a little easier.

As a member of the Armed Services, the information that the TS clearance provided allowed me to do my job better–serve the American people and help fight the enemy. Certainly, much of this information would have been valuable to those that desire nothing but harm upon this great nation.

After successfully going through the clearance process, I now fully understand the importance of that process and of the sensitive materials behind the clearance.

Last Friday the New York Times somehow received and then released information that was deemed a “matter of public interest.” That information, our ability to track the financial transactions of terror groups such as al-Qaeda is vital to our own national security, as well as the Global War on Terror. To even possess and then release such sensitive information can only provide aid and comfort to the enemy.

Those of us aboard the USS Princeton would joke that if we wanted to know how our T-hawk strikes were going, we could just turn on CNN.

I guess if al-Qaeda wants to know about ongoing US counter-terror operations in a TIME OF WAR, they can just consult their intelligence branch, otherwise known as the New York Times!

After all, who needs a security clearance when you’ve got the Times?

-milipundit

UPDATE (12:32 PM): James Joyner has a different perspective of the issue, stating that “The primary fault here is not with the NYT but rather those who have been untrusted with classified information and are leaking it to the press. Those people are in violation of their oath. The press is, at least arguably, doing their job.”

UPDATE II (2 PM): Oak Leaf is blogging about it at PoliPundit.