That it might be. However, the state is remarkably adept at not pursuing crimes that its agents commit... Unless those crimes harm the interests of the ruling class.

There's a pretty clear - and abhorrent power imbalance at play, here.

Or, the state is adept at making the cases it can actually make, and less adept at making systemic cases whose prosecution would cost tens of millions of dollars and seize up operations at intelligence services that actually do need to function, for instance to curb proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Reasonable people can OBVIOUSLY disagree on this point, but I do not perceive Barack Obama as someone who is sanguine about torture.

Is that perception based on his public speech or on his actions?

Personally, if i were sanguine about torture I would have already closed Guantanamo.

It's very difficult these days to not violate federal criminal statute in one way or another, doubly so for someone who works for the government in a high security environment. The fact that most people never get prosecuted for these crimes boils down to discretion and investigatory focus. Based on my experiece I doubt more than a tiny fraction of intelligence workers haven't violated secrecy laws in some mild form, such as casual conversation between coworkers or ex-coworkers.

Outing the identity of a covert operative to a reporter is not one of those crimes you accidentally commit while making orange juice in the morning.