7 Craziest Intelligence Leaks in U.S. History

The Pentagon Papers

The news that the U.S. government has been recording data from phone calls and Internet activity, broken by former CIA employee Edward Snowden, is just the latest in a long line of legendary leaks. Here are some of the most notorious leaks in U.S. history.

In June 1971, The New York Times published sections of a top-secret Department of Defense report on the country's involvement in Vietnam from 1945-1967. Dubbed the "Pentagon Papers," the report detailed how the Johnson administration and others repeatedly misled Congress and the public about the causes and progress of the Vietnam War, according to the History Channel.

The report was leaked by antiwar activist Daniel Ellsberg, a former Defense Department analyst working for the RAND Corp., who stole it from the Pentagon and sent copies to the Times. The Pentagon Papers' publication fueled the antiwar movement and sparked a debate over the freedom of the press to divulge "classified" information and the public's right to know about government affairs. President Richard Nixon tried but failed to get the Supreme Court to prevent further publication of the papers.

The Watergate Scandal

One of the best-known leaks, of course, is the Watergate scandal of Richard Nixon's presidency. On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel complex in Washington, D.C., and installing illegal wiretaps. The men were linked to a fundraising group for Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign, but the Nixon administration denied any involvement.

Later in 1972, Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward exposed the administration's role in the scandal and cover-up. Their key source was an informant nicknamed "Deep Throat," who was later revealed to be former FBI agent W. Mark Felt. A series of Senate hearings nailed the lid on Nixon's coffin, and he resigned from the presidency in 1974 -- the first president to do so.

The Iraq War Logs (WikiLeaks)

The so-called "Iraq War Logs" were just one of many leaks made by the non-profit organization WikiLeaks, founded by Australian journalist and activist Julian Paul Assange. The organization publishes secret or classified information or news from anonymous sources. In October 2010, WikiLeaks published Army field reports from 2004 to 2009 that listed the number of civilian deaths as 66,081 out of 109,000 total recorded deaths. The leaked logs confirmed some partially reported events. For instance, some American troops had been classifying civilian deaths as enemy deaths. The Iraq War Logs represent the largest leak in U.S. history.

The Plame Affair

In 2003, a case of leaked identity ended the career of a CIA agent. On July 6, 2003, The New York Times published an Op-Ed by former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, which questioned the reasons given by President George W. Bush's administration for invading Iraq earlier in 2003.

Wilson, who had been a CIA envoy to Niger in 2002, said Bush's claim that Iraq had attempted to buy enriched uranium yellowcake -- a step toward enriched uranium but not weapons-grade yet -- from Niger was unsubstantiated. In response, Washington Post columnist Robert Novak wrote a column on July 14, 2003 criticizing Wilson and referring to Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an "agency operative" -- blowing her cover.

Wilson accused the White House of leaking Plame's identity as retribution for his Op-Ed, prompting an investigation. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald interviewed Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials and journalists. New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who conducted interviews in the leak but had never written an article about it, refused to testify and was held in contemp. She served time at a federal detention center, but was released after three months when Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, signed a waiver granting Miller permission to speak.

In 2007, Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements to government investigators. Libby was sentenced to prison, but Bush later reduced his sentence.

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