The Right of the Public to Know

At Truthout, Larry C. Johnson has a very fine post about the Valerie Plame case and a ruling by Judge Tatel. Johnson also makes a distinction between the NSA spying leak to the press and the leaking of Valerie Plame's name that nails the issue involved (the typo correction is mine):

Tatel's incisive opinion makes [it] clear that he understands the difference between someone who leaks information designed to hurt U.S. intelligence assets, as happened in Valerie's case, and someone who leaks information about government malfeasance, as happened with the leak to James Risen that the Bush administration was spying on Americans. The key issue for Tatel was "harm" to the United States versus the public's right to know.