Treason’s Definition
Consider the case of Mary McCarthy, the CIA employee who leaked secret information to the press in the hope, presumably, of stopping certain CIA operations of which she disapproved. This had the effect of helping our enemies. Is it treason— the kind of offense that merits execution?
It doesn’t seem like it, but let’s try to think it through. Suppose Mary McCarthy was paid by Al Qaeda for information about the location of secret prisons where captured Al Qaeda terrorists were being held, so the prison could be stormed and the prisoners freed. Surely that is treason.
Suppose, instead, that she was a Moslem, and her motive was purely ideological, to help convert the world to Islam. Surely that is treason too.
Sorry– it looks like I’ve lost the end of this post. To reconstruct a bit:
A third category would be what she probably is, an opponent of current policy who wanted to derail it.
Here, the objective is not to hurt the US, as in the Moslem case 2. But if her motive was money, it wasn’t to hurt the US either– that would be incidental.
The reason case 3 seems different, I think, is that she is sincerely trying to help the US with the leak. Thus, it doesn’t really fit with treason.
But the effect could be very similar. In WW2, the Allies might have invaded France via Normandy or via Flanders. Suppose you were someone who thought Flanders was best. Woudl it have been OK to leak to the press that Normandy had been chosen? If that provoked a switch to Flanders, would it be OK for the pro-Normandy people to leak taht in turn? The ultimate result woudl ahve been no invasion at all.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:57 am
I’ll add a fourth category: suppose she was a freelance journalist. She doesn’t care about the issue, but she is paid money if she reports something interesting.
How is this different from being paid by Al Qaeda?