State Department spokesperson Philippe Reines sternly and unapologetic rebukes CNN for disclosing the journal’s content of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. The manner and circumstances under which CNN obtained the document and the callousness in how they dealt with Ambassador Stevens’ bereaved family was heartless and apathetic. The document could not have fallen on the hands of a more seemingly cosmetic and unsympathetic person than Anderson Cooper.

If the ambassador securely maintained the diary as one would documents of national security implications, and became unsecured because of the attack and/or by CNN’s trespassing behavior, CNN should face legal consequences. The admission by CNN that it took possession of the journal, acknowledged it as the property of Ambassador Stevens, for which it entered unauthorized premises, not CNN’s property, to appropriate it, evinces a serious legal and national security breach.

The State Department legal staff and the attorney for Ambassador Stevens’ family should be processing this case from the two angles presented here.