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Govt- Politics    H3'ed 3/19/15  

Should Petraeus have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act?


Kevin Anthony Stoda
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Should Petraeus have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act?

    

With prosecutions of whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou and several others, the Obama administration is by far the most aggressive in history when it comes to punishing leaks. However, recently, the Obama administration failed to aggressively prosecute David Petraeus, the retired four-star general and former head of the CIA.

Jesselyn Radack, National Security & Human Rights director at the Government Accountability Project says, "The Espionage Act is effectively a strict liability offense, meaning that you can raise no defense. It does not matter whether you were leaking secrets to a foreign enemy for profit or whether you were giving information to journalists in the public interest to give back to the people who have a right to know what's been done in their name. And the fact that the Espionage Act has been used on Tom Drake and John Kiriakou, on Edward Snowden, Stephen Kim, Jeffrey Sterling, Chelsea Manning, Shamai Leibowitz, to suddenly have Petraeus charged under a completely different law just smack of hypocrisy. Moreover, under the Espionage Act--I mean, technically, Petraeus should be charged under the Espionage Act but also with one count of making false statements and three counts under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. And instead, he's not charged under the Espionage Act, and, in fact, he's not charged or indicted at all. He's able to strike a sweetheart plea deal under Section 1924, which is far more lenient, far less punitive and under which he is able to mount a defense...."
Many agree with the Obama Administration's prosecution of Petraeus, but others do not. Where do you stand in this prosecution or lack-there-of, i.e. in all fairness?

I am not sure.
No one, not even the 4-Star General, should be prosecuted in this way.
No one, not even the 4-Star General, should get away with breaking the Espionage Act.
Petraeus should be prosecuted for both the Espionage Act and any other Crime.

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KEVIN STODA-has been blessed to have either traveled in or worked in nearly 100 countries on five continents over the past two and a half decades.--He sees himself as a peace educator and have been-- a promoter of good economic and social development--making-him an enemy of my homelands humongous DEFENSE SPENDING and its focus on using weapons to try and solve global (more...)
 

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