Wait, Justin Bieber?
Via Washington Secrets:
The Obama administration has dragged singing bad boy Justin Bieber into its defense of secretly looking into who reporters like Fox News’ James Rosen talk to inside the federal government to get top secret leaks.
An anonymous national security official penned a column on the Brookings Institution blog Lawfare suggesting that when a reporter asks an official to reveal secrets for a story, it’s akin to hiring a thief to break into Bieber’s home to steal his diaries.
“Let’s look at an analogy. If a reporter finds Justin Bieber’s private diary on the street and publishes it, that’s journalism (of a sort). But if she pays someone to break into Bieber’s house to steal the diary, hasn’t she has aided and abetted, or conspired in, a crime, even if her intent is to get material to publish? That’s exactly what the government says happened here — a reporter soliciting, and aiding and abetting criminal activity,” wrote the Obama official.