Public Servants and Respect

A Letter to the Wall Street Journal Editor last week revealed a problem in the Federal bureaucracy, but not the one the writer intended.  The writer wrote in part,

While Peter Hoekstra in his March 16 op-ed Can Americans Trust Their Spies? clearly states the problem of intelligence leaks from spies employed by the US, he stops short of mentioning a broader issue of morale and trust that is at the heart of a national problem and has stalled our government. Public servants, like all of us, want to feel they are respected and supported by those in high office and that their efforts are taken seriously by our government. When this doesn’t occur, information leaks develop. Modern cyberspace warfare requires the trust and support of our spies and an understanding of who our enemy is.

What this letter writer has ignored is that the right answer to such lack of respect—whether real or imagined—is not for the public “servant” to violate his oath of office by leaking confidential information, nor is it to commit felonies like unmasking the incidentally surveilled.

The right answer is for the public “servant” to resign his position and go to work somewhere else where he can feel properly appreciated.

Full stop.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *