There have been several investigations on the Hill in the past couple of decades. Some have the appearance of political vendetas, but this one is justified. Someone somewhere is giving away or selling classified information to people they should not.

The Good News:
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified information about President Bush's secret domestic spying program.
[…]
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Justice undertook the action on its o...

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified information about Pre

Given the fact that no one has explicity been able to provide any citation proving that this current administration has violated the law (I am thinking in the context of the wiretaps), the ‘whistle blower protection’ is a moot point.

I give you Attorney General Alberto Gonzales:

Now, in terms of legal authorities, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides -- requires a court order before engaging in this kind of surveillance that I've just discussed and the President announced on Saturday, unless there is somehow -- there is -- unless otherwise authorized by statute or by Congress. That's what the law requires. Our position is, is that the authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to engage in this kind of signals intelligence.

Cleary the administration thinks that, absent the AUMF, FISA would require them to get a warrant and that they are acting illegally in not doing so. Unfortunately their reliance on the AUMF as authorizing the surveillance is dubious, as AG AG, perhaps unwittingly, admitted:

Q -- adequate because of technological advances? Wouldn't you do the country a better service to address that issue and fix it, instead of doing a backdoor approach --

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: This is not a backdoor approach. We believe Congress has authorized this kind of surveillance. We have had discussions with Congress in the past -- certain members of Congress -- as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible.

Or, in other words: we asked Congress if they would amend FISA so that we could do this and they said no, so we took the position that Congress had already authorized us to do this with the AUMF (and an assist from Hamdi ). This despite the fact that (a) FISA contemplates its continued applicability during war time; and (b) Congress amended FISA after the AUMF in the PATRIOT Act, so clearly they think it still applies.

Finally, one would be more convinced of the administration's concerns about the leakers if they had, you know, started the investigation a year ago when the NYTimes first threatened to publish the story. Now it just appears they want to punish people for embarrassing the administration.

I would hope we all can agree on that point.

We can indeed. Its relevance to this issue remains to be demonstrated.

The manner of the leaks seem to the casual oberver to be optimized to create the most political damage,

Based on American values, I don't think it would be possible to reveal that any administration was engaged in illegal domestic spying without their being significant political damage to that administration. I would hope we all can agree on that point.

No, the patriotic thing to do is to claim ‘whistle blower’ protection and go to the press.

The manner of the leaks seem to the casual oberver to be optimized to create the most political damage, at the expense of protecting national security.

Maybe the appropriate action would be to claim 'whistle blower protection' and go to the press, but not leak sensitive information. This way, if a whistle blower believes something to be illegal or unethical, said whistle blower has made the public aware without violating the law or national security.

Given the fact that no one has explicity been able to provide any citation proving that this current administration has violated the law (I am thinking in the context of the wiretaps), the 'whistle blower protection' is a moot point. Unless it is appropriate to compromise national security because you think something is illegal and there is a Republican in the White House.

It's about time. Whatever one's position on the appropriateness or even the legality of the program, we can not have people entrusted with classified information deciding for themselves that it should be made public.

But James, Congress is controlled by the same sort of people who would just suppress this information for political reasons. No, the patriotic thing to do is to claim 'whistle blower' protection and go to the press. The release of this kind of information regarding illegal domestic spying is not a matter of national security, it is a matter of national values.