The CIA announced today that an employee of the agency has been fired for leaking classified information. The employee apparently failed a lie detector test; it is unclear whether a criminal prosecution will result.

A CIA official "called this a 'damaging leak' that deals with operational information and said the fired officer knowingly and willfully' leaked the information to the media and 'was caught.'" Fox reports that a law enforcement official stated that the leak related to the "secret prisons" in Europe that were disclosed by the Washington Post last year.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department says that "there [are] dozens of leak investigations under way." It seems likely that one of them relates to the leak of the NSA's terrorist surveillance program.

My only regret is that the investigations didn't start sooner. Democrats in the CIA have been conducting a leak war against the Bush administration for at least the past three years. Perhaps if the law had been enforced more vigorously long ago, the later leaks, which were even more damaging to national security, might not have occurred.

UPDATE: AJ Strata has much more, including the identity of the leaker: CIA officer Mary McCarthy.

Posted by John at 04:54 PM  |    |