(From the NEW YORK TIMES...nevertheless, the paper will endorse Barack Obama for President and David Carr will cast his vote for Mr Obama's reelection....)
Blurred Line Between Espionage and Truth
By DAVID CARR
Last Wednesday in the White House briefing room, the administration’s
press secretary, Jay Carney, opened on a somber note, citing the deaths
of Marie Colvin and Anthony Shadid, two reporters who had died “in order
to bring truth” while reporting in Syria.
Thomas A. Drake, a former employee of the National Security Agency, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act last year.
Jake Tapper, the White House correspondent for ABC News, pointed out
that the administration had lauded brave reporting in distant lands more
than once and then asked, “How does that square with the fact that this
administration has been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive
journalism in the United States by using the Espionage Act to take
whistle-blowers to court?”
He then suggested that the administration seemed to believe that “the
truth should come out abroad; it shouldn’t come out here.”
Fair point. The Obama administration, which promised during its
transition to power that it would enhance “whistle-blower laws to
protect federal workers,” has been more prone than any administration in
history in trying to silence and prosecute federal workers.
The Espionage Act, enacted back in 1917 to punish those who gave aid to
our enemies, was used three times in all the prior administrations to
bring cases against government officials accused of providing classified
information to the media. It has been used six times since the current
president took office.
Setting aside the case of Pfc. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst who is accused of stealing thousands of secret documents,
the majority of the recent prosecutions seem to have everything to do
with administrative secrecy and very little to do with national
security.
In case after case, the Espionage Act has been deployed as a kind of ad
hoc Official Secrets Act, which is not a law that has ever found
traction in America, a place where the people’s right to know is viewed
as superseding the government’s right to hide its business.
In the most recent case, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who
became a Democratic staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, was charged under the Espionage Act
with leaking information to journalists about other C.I.A. officers,
some of whom were involved in the agency’s interrogation program, which
included waterboarding.
For those of you keeping score, none of the individuals who engaged in
or authorized the waterboarding of terror suspects have been prosecuted,
but Mr. Kiriakou is in federal cross hairs, accused of talking to
journalists and news organizations, including The New York Times.
Mr. Tapper said that he had not planned on raising the issue, but
hearing Mr. Carney echo the praise for reporters who dug deep to bring
out the truth elsewhere got his attention.
“I have been following all of these case, and it’s not like they are
instances of government employees leaking the location of secret nuclear
sites,” Mr. Tapper said. “These are classic whistle-blower cases that
dealt with questionable behavior by government officials or its agents
acting in the name of protecting America.”
Mr. Carney said in the briefing that he felt it was appropriate “to
honor and praise the bravery” of Ms. Colvin and Mr. Shadid, but he did
not really engage Mr. Tapper’s broader question, saying he could not go
into information about specific cases. He did not respond to an e-mail
message seeking comment.
In one of the more remarkable examples of the administration’s
aggressive approach, Thomas A. Drake, a former employee of the National
Security Agency, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act last year and
faced a possible 35 years in prison.
His crime? When his agency was about to spend hundreds of millions of
dollars on a software program bought from the private sector intended to
monitor digital data, he spoke with a reporter at The Baltimore Sun. He
suggested an internally developed program that cost significantly less
would be more effective and not violate privacy in the way the product
from the vendor would. (He turned out to be right, by the way.)
He was charged with 10 felony counts that accused him of lying to investigators and obstructing justice. Last summer, the case against him collapsed, and he pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor, of misuse of a government computer.
Jesselyn Radack, the director for national security and human rights at
the Government Accountability Project, was one of the lawyers who
represented him.
“The Obama administration has been quite hypocritical about its promises
of openness, transparency and accountability,” she said. “All
presidents hate leaks, but pursuing whistle-blowers as spies is
heavy-handed and beyond the scope of the law.”
Mark Corallo, who served under Attorney General John D. Ashcroft during
the Bush administration, told Adam Liptak of The New York Times this
month that he was “sort of shocked” by the number of leak prosecutions under President Obama. “We would have gotten hammered for it,” he said.
As Mr. Liptak pointed out, it has become easier to ferret out leakers in
a digital age, but just because it can be done doesn’t mean it should
be.
These kinds of prosecutions can have ripples well beyond the immediate
proceedings. Two reporters in Washington who work on national security
issues said that the rulings had created a chilly environment between
journalists and people who work at the various government agencies.
During a point in history when our government has been accused of
sending prisoners to secret locations where they were said to have been
tortured and the C.I.A. is conducting remote-controlled wars in
far-flung places, it’s not a good time to treat the people who aid in
the publication of critical information as spies.
And it’s worth pointing out that the administration’s emphasis on
secrecy comes and goes depending on the news. Reporters were immediately
and endlessly briefed on the “secret” operation that successfully found
and killed Osama bin Laden. And the drone program in Pakistan and
Afghanistan comes to light in a very organized and systematic way every
time there is a successful mission.
There is plenty of authorized leaking going on, but this particular boat
leaks from the top.
Leaks from the decks below, especially ones that
might embarrass the administration, have been dealt with very
differently.
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