These guys are heroes, often more so than those who turn up in the Rose Garden for a medal pinning ceremony. And they're wanted by the very top layer of our government.
Who helped the journalists obtain that "top secret" court order?
Hopefully, that's going to stay secret for a long time. As Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt note in the NY Times, "The order was marked TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN, referring to communications-related intelligence information that may not be released to noncitizens. That would make it among the most closely held secrets in the federal government, and its disclosure comes amid a furor over the Obama administration's aggressive tactics in its investigations of leaks." In other words, it was likely leaked by someone who took a personal risk exposing it.
Why?
It is impossible to know. But it isn't hard to identify likely motives. Perhaps the leaker felt morally repulsed by the knowledge that the government is spying on millions of innocent citizens in secret, something normally associated with Communist and fascist regimes, not democratic republics. (It's true that the order doesn't cover the content of calls, and that a separate warrant is needed to connect the information to actual users -- not that we'd know if they sought those, or if officials now or in the future just ignored that legal requirement to spy on individuals. ...) ...Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
After all, when you get right down to it, the actions of our government, whether taken under the leadership of Nixon, Reagan, Bush or Obama, are more dangerous to our way of life, beliefs, and political system than Islamist terrorists.
