Sunday Column: The Danger of Suppressing the Leaks

The Danger of Suppressing the Leaks

IMAGINE if American citizens never learned about the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Imagine not knowing about the brutal treatment of terror suspects at United States government “black sites.” Or about the drone program that is expanding under President Obama, or the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping of Americans.

This is a world without leaks.

And a world without leaks â€" the secret government information slipped to the press â€" may be the direction we’re headed in. Since 9/11, leakers and whistle-blowers have become an increasingly endangered species. Some, like the former C.I.A. official John Kiriakou, have gone to jail. Another, Pfc. Bradley Manning, is charged with “aiding the enemy” for the masses of classified information he gave to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks. He could face life in prison.

The government has its reasons for cracking down. Obama administration officials have consistently cited national security concerns and expressed their intention to keep prosecuting leakers.

“The government has legitimate secrets that should remain secrets,” Michael V. Hayden, the former C.I.A. director, said in a telephone interview.

Journalists tend to view the situation differently, and not just because they want, in the oft-heard phrase, “to sell newspapers.” They see leaks â€" which have many motivations, not all altruistic â€" as vital to news gathering.

Declan Walsh, a reporter who wrote many WikiLeaks-based stories for The Guardian before coming to The Times, calls leaks “the unfiltered lifeblood of investigative journalism.” He wrote in an e-mail from his post in Pakistan: “They may come from difficult, even compromised sources, be ridden with impurities and require careful handling to produce an accurate story. None of that reduces their importance to journalism.”

Readers whom I hear from on this topic tend to express one of two opposite viewpoints: 1) The Times should relentlessly find out and print whatever it can about clandestine government activities, and 2) The Times has no business determining what is in the best interest of national security, or pursuing classified information that is passed along illegally.

Whatever one’s view, one fact is clear: Leakers are being prosecuted and punished like never before. Consider that the federal Espionage Act, passed in 1917, was used only three times in its first 92 years to prosecute government officials for press leaks. But the Obama administration, in the president’s first term alone, used it six times to go after leakers. Now some of them have gone to jail.

The crackdown sends a loud message. Scott Shane, who covers national security for The Times, says that message is being heard â€" and heeded.

“There’s definitely a chilling effect,” he told me. “Government officials who might otherwise discuss sensitive topics will refer to these cases in rebuffing a request for background information.”

And that, says Michael Leiter, is as it should be. Mr. Leiter, the former director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center, says the prosecutions are “intended to have a deterrent effect. We’ve come too far toward willy-nilly leaking of sensitive information.”

Many observers, though, see a useful middle ground. “This is often looked at as a battle of good versus evil, and both sides see it that way,” Mr. Hayden said. “But that’s not the case.” He believes that for a national security effort to succeed, it must not only be “operationally effective, technologically possible and lawful,” it must also be “politically sustainable.”

The latter requires public support, he said, “which is only shaped by informed debate.” You can’t have debate without knowledge, and given the growing penchant for overclassification, that’s where the press steps in.

Mr. Shane looks back on a Pentagon Papers affidavit written in 1971 by Max Frankel, then The Times’s Washington bureau chief and later its executive editor, which described Washington reality: “The government hides what it can, pleading necessity as long as it can, and the press pries out what it can, pleading a need and a right to know. When the government loses a secret or two, it simply adjusts to a new reality. When the press loses a quest or two, it simply reports (or misreports) as best it can.”

David McCraw, the lawyer for The Times’s newsroom, said, “The system works because of restraint on both sides.” Dean Baquet, the managing editor, agreed: “We’ve proven that we can be responsible with information. In fact, sometimes we even overdo it.”

But the ramped-up prosecutions threaten this fragile ecosystem that has served the public pretty well.

Private Manning’s extreme treatment, in particular, worries Mr. Walsh and others because of the example it sets. (That case is in a class by itself, of course, with the wholesale transfer of some 700,000 documents. The Times reported many articles from the material, as did others.)

Many observers are quick to note a double standard for leak prosecutions: tightly controlled leaks from the highest levels ruffle no feathers.

Chris Hedges, an author, columnist and former Times reporter, thinks powerful institutions like The Times ought to push back harder â€" showing solidarity, including “legal common cause” with Mr. Manning and Mr. Assange, providing more detailed coverage of leak prosecutions, and crusading in editorials. “Beyond what’s right, even enlightened self-interest should dictate it,” he told me.

To its credit, The Times repeatedly has gone to court to seek material related to the drone program and other issues, has covered Mr. Kiriakou’s case heavily, and consistently has written editorials defending press rights.

“Obviously, everybody in the industry could do more,” Mr. McCraw said of legal efforts. “Resources are limited, but we’re picking the best possible shots.”

The Times needs to keep pressing on all these fronts, and with more zeal in print than it has so far. If news organizations don’t champion press interests, who will

In the meantime, the chilling effect continues apace. That is troubling for journalists, but even worse for citizens, who should not be in the dark about what their government is doing.

Follow the public editor on Twitter at twitter.com/sulliview and read her blog at publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com.  The public editor can also be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 10, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: The Danger of Suppressing the Leaks.