COMMENTARY: Thou shalt not leak: the sin of revealing secrets

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.) UNDATED _ In the moral theology I was taught at seminary, revealing a secret […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

UNDATED _ In the moral theology I was taught at seminary, revealing a secret one was bound to protect was defined as a sin. Moreover, if you did tell someone a secret, that person was also bound _ under pain of sin _ not to reveal it.


These do not seem to be especially exceptional moral principles.

Yet, when applied to the practice of prosecuting attorneys who leak secret information to the news media, one is forced to conclude the sin is widespread among both leaking attorneys and leaked-to journalists.

As with other sins, the argument that everyone does it is irrelevant.

Why do journalists seek leaks?

They’ll tell you it’s because they seek the”truth.”But it is a curious kind of truth that turns into a public relations gambit for prosecutors. More likely, journalists are really seeking a scandal to sell newspapers and further their careers.

Why do prosecutors leak confidential information to journalists?

There are two reasons. First, it will enhance their prestige with reporters, which will lead to more favorable coverage, thus furthering their political careers. Secondly, it helps them get convictions in the court of public opinion before they obtain indictments, thus making their work easier.

This vicious symbiosis between ambitious prosecutors and ambitious journalists does no harm _ save to the hoary American principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. But then who worries about that any more?

Almost always they get away with such behavior, though it is immoral, unethical, and, in some instances, illegal.

Why? Because no journalist will ever reveal their”source.”Some secrets, you see, are more secret than other secrets. The secrets of a man who is innocent until proven guilty are less secret than a journalist’s secrets.

I have argued for many years that the power and corruption of federal attorneys may be the most serious threat today to the freedom of Americans.


A federal attorney can convict anyone in the court of public opinion through leaks and then bankrupt them if they don’t play ball by either entering a plea bargain or perhaps agreeing to give false testimony against someone else. Leaks are part of that threat to freedom.

As anyone who reads my novels knows, this is not a new preoccupation of mine. Independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s leaks are not the first ones to have disgusted me. They merely demonstrate in exaggerated fashion what prosecuting attorneys are doing all day, every day, across our country.

Weak judges like U.S. District Court Judge Norma Holloway Johnson and see-no-evil senior attorneys like Attorney General Janet Reno are guilty of seriously neglecting their duty when they fail to punish both the leaking prosecutors and the leaked-to reporters.

However, judges and senior attorneys also like to see their names in the papers and be praised by the editorials in the very papers who have exploited the leaks. And this, alas, is what passes for justice in America today.

How can anyone doubt that the tidal wave of information from the special prosecutor’ office that fills Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post and The New York Times results from deliberate leaks.

In his article exposing the shoddy and irresponsible journalism of the Washington press corps as it exploited the Clinton scandals, Stephen Brill leaves little doubt that, in addition to being very sloppy, the national media’s feeding frenzy has used information that ought legally to be kept secret.


The cries of outrage from Washington journalists in the wake of the Brill article are understandable. They feel no one should be watching the watchmen, no one should be investigating them.

Fortunately for the president, the public dismisses their scoops as disgusting nonsense, a dismissal to which the media respond by telling the public it has lost all sense of outrage. They miss the point: The outrage is all directed at them.

Nonetheless, the constant and habitual violation of secrecy and privacy by federal attorneys is evidence of a moral breakdown in certain segments of society. Generally, I don’t believe people are any worse than they’ve ever been. But I do believe lawyers and reporters are more immoral than they used to be _ and they never were very moral to begin with!

DEA END GREELEY

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