Judge: No Need To Prove Harm Under Espionage Act
What is this "harm" of which you speak?
In another potential setback for whistleblowers, a US judge has made a ruling that essentially lowers the requirements for government prosecutors to prove damage to national security committed by alleged leakers.
The case concerns Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, who in 2010 was indicted on two counts of disclosing national defense secrets to Fox News reporter James Rosen the year prior. Kim's information was based on an intelligence report which was available to a limited number of government employees.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the prosecution does not need to show that the information Kim allegedly leaked could damage US national security or benefit a foreign power, even potentially.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
So any leak the government wants to prosecute it can. Thank Judge Kotelly for giving the feds nearly unlimited prosecution power!