A Response to Media II

By Douglas Farah

The William Allen White editorial, does, in fact, go to one of the premises of the current debate on the media--whether the government has the right to curb free speech in times of crisis and fear. It is a broad and vital debate, but one that cannot be fully carried out if any administration--and this one in particular--spreads the blanket of secrecy so far that it is very hard to discern the real threats from the often corrosive desire for secrecy for the sake of secrecy.

In the specific cases I believe Dennis Lormel is referring to--the NSA story in the New York Times and the renditions story in the Washington Post, a clear argument can be made that the public interest outweighed whatever national security gains were being made. Given the broad bipartisan questioning of the NSC actions, from stauch conservatives to liberals, I think it is clear the revelation of the program falls within the public's right to know, or at least to have Congressional oversight and ensure the rule of law. It is a debate that will rage for quite some time, but one where there is a clear argument that, when fundamental liberties are going to be eroded despite specific laws to the contrary, the public has a right to participate in the debate. If the law can be deemed subject to waiver, for whatever reason, then the terrorists will have made a fundamental gain in reshaping our society.

On the renditions story, to me the case is even more clear cut. Al Qaeda knows that its senior operatives are held in separate facilities where they are subject to interrogation techniques that would not be permitted in the United States. The story gave the terrorist organizations no information that they did not already have. Do they think Khalid Sheik Mohamed is in the U.S. or Guantanamo? Somewhat unlikely. It is generally the case, and I know specically in some cases with the al Qaeda captures, that the window of opertional benefit is a few hours, at most days, before the enemy will reconfigure itself, roll up potentially compromised operations and go into its most fierce damage-control mode. Telling them that their high profile targets are in special prisons, after the practice has been going on for more than four years, is unlikely to give them what they do not already have.

I have been in debates over what to publish and when. My experience--and I know it was the experience in both these cases--is that, if the administration can give a good-faith reason why things should not be public, or suggest ways to make a story useful to the public without compromising national security, those steps are taken. The threshold is fairly low for cutting things from a story, higher for killing story outright. In both these cases there were extensive, constructive discussions with the administration and intelligence community before publication--a clear bending of the traditional separation the media from government influence on what is published, but part of the new era.

There will always be tension between allowing the public information that is vital to make intelligent decisions and the desire for secrecy to protect programs that sometimes do merit protection. There is a lot more grey than just asking where does social responsibility start. Sens. Lindsey Graham, Patrick Leahy and many others--and many true American patriots--view the NSC story as something so fundamentally important it reshapes our national identity, and therefore should not be hidden, especially when efforts were made along the way to legally and jointly modify the existing structure to make it more agile and responsive. The media walk a fine line and sometimes overstep. But so does an administration that cloaks everything in secrecy rather than that which is necessary.

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