Leaks lead to investigations in German rendition inquiry.

A German parliamentary panel is investigating whether and to what degree German government agencies assisted the American CIA's "extraordinary rendition" efforts to move captured illegal enemy combatants from the "War on Terror" to secret interrogation sites. According to The Independent, a British paper, the "parliamentary panel is also looking into the alleged involvement of the German foreign intelligence service BND with the CIA at the start of the Iraq war. The remit also includes investigating the kidnapping and rendition of Khalid el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, and the detention at Guantanamo Bay of a German-born Turkish citizen Murat Kurnaz."

A number of details from classified reports have been leaked to the German press during the inquiry, and now several reporters face prosecution for quoting from and publicizing the information contained in those classified reports. But it wasn't the journalists who were responsible for the leak. "With respect to the sensitivity of the information published, whoever leaked the classified documents should be investigated, not the journalists. It is their duty to publish matters of public interest. They should not be criminally charged for doing their job," said Joel Smith, head of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Who knows, though, what an investigation into who actually leaked the material might uncover. Why were there leaks? Who authorized them? How high does culpability reach? And how about the culpability of the policymakers behind the extraordinary rendition program, particularly in cases where prisoners are renditioned to regimes to be tortured?