Lawmakers Promise To Crackdown on National Security Leaks

The leaders of the Senate and House intelligence committees said Thursday that they plan to introduce legislation aimed at clamping down on national security leaks, a move that comes as Republicans have accused the Obama administration of leaking info to help the president's reelection effort.

While Sen. John McCain and other Republicans have pointed to recent news stories that have detailed Obama's decision-making process as proof the White House is playing election-year politics with sensitive information, the Washington Post notes that the committee leaders stopped well short of such accusations. "This is not finger-pointing at anybody," Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, said after hearing form National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper. "What we’re trying to do is say we have a problem and we want to stop that problem."

Several times in recent weeks, stories about sensitive national security information have appeared in the news, including the New York Times article about Obama’s so-called "kill list" and the revelation of the role the United States played in the cyberattack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Those accounts, which have painted a relatively strong picture of Obama as commander-in-chief, have left some Republicans calling foul. Republican Rep. Peter King, for example, told Politico that "it would require a suspension of disbelief to believe it’s not being done for political purposes."