Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

The U.S. Intelligence Ship Is Too Leaky To Sail

The U.S. services have lost credibility by becoming the leakiest in the world.

He's not talking long-distance to America right now.

Photographer: Christopher Furlong
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U.K. police investigating the Manchester terror attack say they have stopped sharing information with the U.S. after a series of leaks that have so angered the British government that Prime Minister Therese May wants to discuss them with President Donald Trump during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting in Brussels. What can Trump tell her, though? The leaks drive him nuts, too.

Since the beginning of this century, the U.S. intelligence services and their clients have acted as if they wanted the world to know they couldn't guarantee the confidentiality of any information that falls into their hands. At this point, the culture of leaks is not just a menace to intelligence-sharing allies. It's a threat to the intelligence community's credibility.