I don't know about you, but all this celebration surrounding the revelation of the true identity of "Deep Throat" really rubs me the wrong way.
Just to make sure I have it right, let's review the facts:
An agent, who is sworn to an oath of secrecy is entrusted with confidential information by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
This agent is invested with the police power of the state to investigate and interrogate, to detain and arrest and ultimately to incarcerate wrong-doers - people who have broken the law.
This same agent rises to become Assistant Director of the FBI - the highest domestic intelligence agency in the country - and is thus situated at the crossroads of an even greater current of sensitive and highly confidential information.
At this point, he decides that his oath of confidentiality is not really an oath, the law is not really a law, that top secret really only means "sort of" and that the Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein are ex officio members of the Bureau anyway so why not tell them everything he knows.
Now, 30 years later this man, W. Mark Felt, is being hailed as a hero.
What a bunch of unmitigated, rotgut, unadulterated CRAP!
This guy should be reviled, scorned, excoriated, excommunicated, etcetera, et al, and so on, blah blah blah blah.
He was sworn to uphold the law not adjudicate it. He was sworn to protect secrets not reveal them. He was sworn to collect intelligence, not publish it.
Consider this, what if he had given this information to the Soviets and not to the Washington Post? (author's note: that might be a distinction without a difference) Would Felt not have been guilty of espionage and treason? Why is what he did so different? He knew that our enemies - both foreign and domestic - would read his revelations in the morning paper.
There is probably a good reason why Felt kept silent all of these years. He knew that what he did was illegal and improper. The practice of FBI agents leaking confidential information to the press still goes on regularly.
I have personally spoken to reporters from national press outlets who asked me questions about facts that they could only have known from FBI sources.
This situation must not be allowed to continue. At 91 years of age, Felt is probably beyond the age at which his arrest would be viewed by anyone as a positive step.
On the other hand, perhaps the FBI should revoke his pension and take other steps to ensure that a message is sent to everyone - both inside and outside the agency- that the power of the State which is vested in each Agent and employee, carries with it significant repsonsibility.
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2 comments:
You're an idiot.
But he didn't tell the Soviets. He told the American people so they would know what their government was doing that impacted them badly. It sounds like what you are saying is that if you were serving under Hitler and you took an oath of secrecy etc., and you saw that something (everything) that your bosses were doing was morally wrong, you had to abide by your oath of silence and not tell people what was going on. How do things change if the people that are doing wrong have their secrets kept? Do those people spontaniously change their behaviour because suddenly they have an epiphany that what they're doing is wrong and they stop doing it? I don't think so.
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