HOW TO STOP DANGEROUS PRESS LEAKS

Another simple hard hitting post from Ms. Malkin

By Michelle Malkin · December 26, 2005 11:16 AM
So, President Bush is now begging newspaper editors to stop publishing classified information obtained via illegal leaks. Howard Kurtz reports:
President Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security.
The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics.
Here's an idea. Instead of going hat in hand to the liberal media elite to prevent these security-compromising disclosures, the White House should try this:
1. Strengthen collective spine.2. Subpoena reporters.3. Find the leakers.4. Prosecute the lawbreakers.
Six days ago, the President said he had not ordered an investigation into the leak, but that, "There's a process that goes on inside the Justice Department about leaks. I presume that process is moving forward."
Well, is it?
Jack Kelly, who blogs at Irish Pennants, writes in his latest Toledo Blade column:
It is despicable, but not illegal, for the news media to publish vital national secrets leaked to them. But the leakers have committed a felony.
Those who have demanded severe punishment for whoever it was who told reporters that Valerie Plame worked at the CIA have been remarkably forgiving about who leaked the existence of the NSA intercept program, which - like the earlier leak of secret CIA prisons for al-Qaeda bigwigs and unlike the Plame kerfuffle - has done serious harm to our national security.
But fortunately, by clapping New York Times reporter Judith Miller in irons until she talked, overzealous special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has set a valuable precedent.
Attorney General Gonzales should subpoena Mr. Risen and Mr. Lichtblau, and have them cited for contempt of court if they do not disclose their source or sources. Maybe they could share Judy Miller's old cell.
***AJ Strata is keeping an eye on recently resigned FISA Judge James Robertson.
Fausta at The Bad Hair Blog is fed up.