[Mb-civic] The press and classified information - The Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

  The press and classified information

By H.D.S. Greenway  |  January 17, 2006

I MAY BE like a lot of Americans who believe that the kind of computer 
eavesdropping that the top-secret National Security Agency is involved 
in is probably a good thing, given the nature of the threat against this 
country, but would like to see the government stay this side of the 
Constitution and preserve the rule of law.

Whether or not the Bush administration did break the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act is being hotly debated, but President Bush 
has said that he considers the leak ''a shameful act." It was clear that 
he was not talking only about the individuals who leaked the classified 
information, but the newspaper that published the information, The New 
York Times.

The balance between the public's right to know, which is the raison 
d'etre for a free press, and the government's right to keep its secrets 
has a long and tumultuous history in this country. It is not uncommon 
for the executive branch to ask a newspaper publisher or an editor to 
quash, or at least hold, a story because of national security. The 
newspaper must then decide whether the story really would harm the 
country or whether the government is trying to cover up malfeasance or 
mistakes.

In the current eavesdropping case the pressure was as intense as it can 
be, with the president of the United States calling the publisher, 
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and the editor, Bill Keller, down to the White 
House to get them to stop publication.

Although all the facts have not all been revealed, The New York Times 
did hold the story for almost a year to get the facts right, and certain 
things the White House asked to be removed were removed.

Whether or not the reporters who wrote the story will eventually be 
required to reveal their anonymous sources, or go to jail, as in the 
Judith Miller-Valerie Plame Wilson case, will depend largely on whether 
the government's eavesdropping is deemed to have been legal or illegal. 
Revealing an illegality is one thing, while revealing a legal 
intelligence operation is another. One wishes the White House had been 
as judicious about revealing the name of Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA 
operative in the first place, but that is another story.

The most famous case involving the press and classified information was 
the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, in which Sulzberger's father had to 
decide whether to print the purloined, secret history of the Vietnam 
War, which the Pentagon had written, or do the Nixon administration's 
bidding and remain silent. He chose the former, and the government 
stopped the presses for a while. But the Supreme Court eventually 
decided in the newspaper's favor. Other papers, including The Washington 
Post and The Boston Globe, took up printing the Pentagon Papers during 
the time the Times was silenced.

Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee agreed to a CIA request in 1974 
not to reveal the mission of the Glomar Explorer, a secret ship designed 
to reach down with giant claws to bring a sunken Russian submarine to 
the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The CIA wanted to capture the sub's 
code books without the Russians knowing it. The Post printed the story 
the following year, once the operation was over.

More than one paper was asked not to publish the story of ''Ivy Bells," 
an operation tapping into underwater cables in Russian harbors that 
carried vital information on Soviet submarines. In the end it turned out 
that the secret had been revealed by a US Navy traitor.

I was asked by the Israelis not to reveal the existence of their airlift 
of Ethiopian Jews out of Africa some decades ago when I was foreign 
editor of The Boston Globe. I complied, but said I wanted to be first to 
print the story when the rescue operation was over. I wasn't. I was 
beaten to the punch.

Certainly the Chicago Tribune's decision to print a story of how we had 
broken a Japanese code turning World War II was reprehensible. I suspect 
that the Washington Times's decision to reveal that we could listen in 
on Osama bin Laden's cellphone hurt the nation too. But publishing the 
Pentagon Papers did nothing to harm US security.

As for the current NSA eavesdropping expose, there was enough evidence 
of government wrongdoing to justify publishing the story, but the 
decision cannot have been easy.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/17/the_press_and_classified_information/
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