When will the journalists stop thinking about scoops, Pulitzers and raises and start thinking about the implications of what they are doing.  I have said many times the media has a right as long as it is responsible with it, otherwise it is as open to charges of criminal negligence and exposing national secrets as anyone else in this country.  The  LA Times leaked critical information on how we are combatting and neutralizing IED’s in our battle with terrorists, just to find the terrorists using that same information days later to negate our efforts and expose more of our military men and women to maiming and possible death:

During his speech about Iraq on Monday, President Bush criticized a newspaper article that he said revealed sensitive information about the Pentagon’s effort to combat improvised explosive devices, the makeshift roadside bombs responsible for thousands of injuries and deaths. White House officials later said that Bush was referring to a Feb. 12 report in the Los Angeles Times.

“Within five days of the publication, using details from that article, the enemy had posted instructions for defeating this new technology on the Internet,” Bush said. “We cannot let the enemy know how we’re working to defeat them.”

The Times article was about an internal Pentagon debate over a device called the Joint IED Neutralizer, or JIN. The article said that even though the device had passed a battery of military utility tests, and a prototype had destroyed about 90% of the improvised explosives laid in its path during testing, the neutralizer units had still not been sent to combat units in Iraq.

Now the LA Times is claiming they did not expose critical data and no one in the Administration contacted them.  But Bush was pointing to SOMEONE! And my experience with journalist is they are so technically ignorant they barely grasp the concept of systems, let alone what kind of information can be leaked that an experienced engineer could use to decipher the system.  I don’t need a lot of information to determine the basic workings, and therefore weaknesses, of a system.  And I am an average engineer.  Their are minds out there so sharp they can determine our classified capabilities to an astonishing degree using physics and common sense.  For example the estimated performance of our spy satellites given the Hubble Space Telescopes capabilities and the march of technology since it was built.

So no reporter I know has the education and experience to determine what should and should not be exposed in these systems.  And they should stop pretending that they do have such knowledge.