To be more serious, that article just rehashes what was said before. People keep saying it, and somehow... nothing happens. Isn't espionage supposed to be some kind of shell game, not a numbers racket? https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/the-top-secret-nunes-memo-illust... Robin Raphel—a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan—had her career destroyed because the FBI suspected she was spilling secrets to the Pakistanis. One of the claims made against her was that she was speaking with Pakistani officials about speculation that there may be a coup, information that the intelligence community deemed classified. But speculation of a coup was prevalent in the Pakistani media and within cross-government channels; all Raphel was doing was discussing the issues of the day with her foreign counterparts. Classification can also be abused to avoid oversight and wield power over Congress. If you are a senator, unless you work on the Intelligence Committee, are part of the leadership, or are the chair or ranking member of the Foreign Relations or Armed Services committees, your staff does not have the highest level of clearance. Many executive branch briefings to members of Congress are at this highest classification level, partially to protect information but also to keep staff out. So, even if a member gains access to key information that should be further investigated, she cannot share it with anyone who works for her, making it nearly impossible to follow up and exercise proper oversight. This paucity of clearances stands in sharp contrast to the executive branch, where thousands of people hold the highest level of clearance and have easy access to facilities and computers that enable their review of classified materials, and where millions of dollars are invested annually in protecting and expanding these resources. On Capitol Hill, there are few such facilities where classified information can be discussed or worked on. And yet, for all these security measures, major breaches via Edward Snowden, Russian spying, or a Chinese heist of thousands of personnel records continue.