Last week U.S. Senator Rick Santorum suggested that the individuals who leaked information about our domestic and international surveillance programs were traitorous (see here).  Moreover, he claimed that, "If leaking this information is traitorous, then publishing it is also complicit with that activity."  Just to be clear, his first claim is that the act of leaking information about these surveillance programs amounted to treason–presumably because it involved divulging information that was supposed to be kept secret (i.e., outside the eyes and ears of the public and beyond the scope of the law).  His second claim is that the news agencies that published the information that had been leaked were themselves complicit with treason–presumably because they made the public aware of the information that should have been kept secret in the first place. 

For now I want to set aside the tricky issue of determining precisely what complicity involves (see here for an earlier discussion).  Instead I simply want to suggest that if one takes Santorum’s reasoning seriously, then it appears that he, too, is being complicit with treason.  After all, if he had not brought the subject up yet again, the issue would be getting less public attention.  Instead, Santorum’s comments make the issue even more visible–which in turn means that the secrets that were improperly leaked and published are more visible.  And, based on his own reasoning, bringing attention to the secrets is treasonous.  Hence, Santorum is a traitor who by his own standards "must be pursued aggressively."  Luckily, I just moved to Pennsylvania.  So, I get to play a part in kicking him out of office in the fall.

*Cross-posted at truth to power (with open comments thread)