Treason for the Sake of What?

The NSA terrorist surveillance program has been compromised. This is a cold, hard fact. If we know about it, one cannot doubt that Al Queda knows about it. If Al Queda knows about it, they will certainly find another means to communicate with their operatives within our borders, raising the odds alarmingly that there could be another unanticipated attack within our borders. We would like to blame it on the New York Times for breaking the story, but all the Times did was report on information it had been given. Newspaper journalists, as far as I know, are not required to hold a security clearance.
The person who leaked the information does hold a security clearance. If it was a Congressperson who had been briefed on the program, that person would be guilty of violating his or her security clearance and the oath of office. If it was a person in the NSA who gave the information to the Times that person is acting as a double agent for Al Queda, perhaps not conscientiously, but out of self-importance and political zealism. The bottom line is that an American citizen has aided the enemy and precipitated the possibility of thousands of innocent American citizens being killed. This is no less than Treason, a capital crime. On the battlefield, Treason is punishable by summary execution.
It is doubtful that the traitor is actually on the Al Queda payroll, or is in contact with Al Queda; if that was so, that person more than likely would have already been caught. It is far more likely that the traitor is somebody who is so much against the current Administration that he or she would have no qualms about “sacrificing the few for the good of the many.”
In other words, so great is the traitor’s hatred for President Bush, that he or she would resort to killing people to find a reason for impeachment of the President. The person may even see it as a patriotic duty, having fallen victim to the half truths and omissions of truth by the “blame America first” faction. Because the NYTimes has precedence as an anti Bush publication, it would be the most likely newspaper a person with such motives would turn to first. But the cold hard fact is that this person has committed a very serious crime against the people of America, and is no less a criminal than one who would actually detonate a bomb in a public place.
Congress has been wasting time. First, they questioned the NSA program and the President’s authority to implement such a program, then they backpedaled, “discovering” that the surveillance is necessary for the safety and well being of the Nation. Now, Congress is fiddling about over Vice President Cheney’s hunting accident. What Congress should be doing, right now, is issuing subpoenas and preparing for hearings investigating the leak. The Justice Department should be using all of its available resources to find and try the traitor. And, if that person is caught and tried, if he or she has no intelligence value, upon conviction, the spy should be taken out behind the courthouse and shot, as proscribed by law.
Do I seem like a knee-jerk reactionary or an alarmist? Consider this: Al Queda is not just a rag-tag band of extremists and malcontents. It is a very sophisticated organization, with its own government, its own propaganda, recruiting, and intelligence networks, and, indeed, its own army. If Bin Laden, who has recently warned of another attack against the United States, finds it necessary to use another means to communicate with his operatives within our borders, he can and will. We may have the technology and method to intercept those communications, but what is to stop the traitor from divulging that information? Security matters which concern the safety of the population can not be compromised.
I sincerely hope that the traitor is an ideological or paid ally of the terrorists; that it is not just someone who would rather see Gore, Kerry, or Cheney in the Oval Office. The thought that someone would go so far as to endanger the general population, merely because of dissatisfaction with the present Administration, disturbs me. And I pray fervently that the act of Treason does not result in another terrible tragedy.