The Obama administration is gloating over the recent conviction of Jeffrey Sterling in an Alexandria, Va. federal court for allegedly leaking details of a secret government program called Operation Merlin that was intended to damage Iran's nuclear program. Attorney General Eric Holder described the verdict as "…a just and appropriate outcome. The defendant's unauthorized disclosures of classified information compromised operations undertaken in defense of America's national security. The disclosures placed lives at risk."

But some serious doubts persist over whether Sterling actually did anything illegal. Sterling was charged and convicted on nine counts, seven of which pertain to the Espionage Act of 1917, which was mostly of interest to antiquarians before it was taken off the shelf and used by the George W. Bush administration and subsequently employed even more frequently by Barack Obama's increasingly reactionary Justice Department. The