Untrue. As noted, leaks are already quite punishable and yet they happen all the time (as we're seeing now). The issue is one of focus: The government can't track down all the leaks - impossible.

However, the government needs to spend its resources keeping the "real/important" secret stuff under-wraps and opening up the rest(via low-level leaks).

A system like I proposed would lead to a better allocation of intelligence/security resources by the government and increased transparency for us - without removing all barriers to secrecy, which is highly unrealistic.

Except that whistleblowing is widely protected legally. Where do you distinguish between leaking and whistleblowing? Is it leaking if the government is involved? Or where there's public interest? Who decides what's in the public interest? The government? And which public - just the US? or are Afghanis covered too?

It's much safer IMO to have blanket protection for leaking/whistleblowing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower

Good point surely, but I'm trying to think of something that will actually happen in our political climate. Of course I'd prefer complete openness, but they'd never do it...

The problem is that the government gets to decide what's super secret and what's not, so you'll get a gradual erosion of information as more and more stuff gets marked as secret, even when it's just embarrassing or difficult to handle.

A similar thing happens with FOI requests here in Australia - there's an exemption for material which is 'commercial in-confidence'. Now pretty much everything that the government produces is marked as commercial in-confidence, and it's back to the old system of suing the government to release information.

Far better to have people leak stuff and then be protected under whistleblower / freedom of the press laws if it's in the public interest (with presumption that it is in the public interest, so the government has to bring a case to prove that it's not).