Ethics charges filed against DOJ lawyer who exposed Bush-era surveillance; ArsTechnica.com, 1/26/16

David Kravets, ArsTechnica.com; Ethics charges filed against DOJ lawyer who exposed Bush-era surveillance:

"A former Justice Department lawyer is facing legal ethics charges for exposing the President George W. Bush-era surveillance tactics—a leak that earned The New York Times a Pulitzer and opened the debate about warrantless surveillance that continues today.

The lawyer, Thomas Tamm, now a Maryland state public defender, is accused of breaching Washington ethics rules for going to The New York Times instead of his superiors about his concerns about what was described as "the program."

Tamm was a member of the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review and, among other things, was charged with requesting electronic surveillance warrants from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."