Category Archives: leaks

June 2, 2014 · 12:01 pm

SCOTUS: If you make journalists criminals, then only criminals can be journalists.

by Christopher B. Daly 

It’s no surprise, I suppose, that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a New York Times reporter who has been seeking to avoid being sent to jail for his refusal to testify about his sources. The ruling is a setback for reporter James Risen and for the entire enterprise of journalism as well. The reason: the high court cannot find protection for reporters in the U.S. Constitution.

The First Amendment famously says (in part): “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of the press.” As I have written, I believe that the First Amendment goes beyond the right to disseminate news and includes the right to gather news. In some situations, that news-gathering function, also known as reporting, may require reporters to extend a promise of confidentiality to a source. I believe that they have a constitutionally protected right to do so. (Actually, to be precise: I believe that you and I and the rest of the American people have the right to learn what the journalist can learn — that is, we are entitled to information, especially controversial, secret information, that will enable us to make good decisions about powerful institutions.)

Many people disagree. They invoke the ancient legal doctrine which holds that justice demands every person’s testimony — no exceptions (oh, except for the “testimonial privilege” widely granted to clergy, attorneys, spouses and others — plenty of people enjoy the right not to testify with no deleterious effects on society). Superficially, this makes a certain amount of sense. But it overlooks the chilling effect on both sources and reporters if journalists can be dragged into court and ordered, under oath, to break their word and reveal the identities of their confidential sources. The fully predictable result of this doctrine will be that the people will not learn all that they might about difficult, hidden truths.

And a word here about criminal justice. Obviously, the investigation, prosecution, and punishment of crime is an important value in society. I would not want to live in a society that did not suppress crime. But we must bear in mind that law enforcement is not a transcendent value; it is not so important that it can be used to sweep away all other rights and values. It has to be balanced against other important priorities (like being secure in our persons and papers).

I maintain that it is better for a handful of prosecutors to miss out on the testimony of a handful of people than it is to impose blinders on the press. I don’t want to live in that kind of society, either. Prosecutors pursue justice; journalists pursue truth. Those are both important, and sometimes allied, enterprises. But they are not identical, and when they conflict, my default position would be to privilege truth-seeking.

Also, bear in mind: prosecutors have plenty of techniques and powers that journalists don’t have.

–They have the power to subpoena (non-journalist) witnesses and question them under oath.

–If witnesses lie, prosecutors can charge them with perjury.

–Prosecutors have the power to induce suspects to talk by negotiating plea-bargains.

–Prosecutors have the home-team advantage in every courtroom in the country.

–Prosecutors have the power to get a search warrant and spy on suspects.

If prosecutors can’t solve a particular crime with all those powers (which journalists don’t have), then maybe they’re just not trying hard enough.

One implication of today’s Supreme Court ruling: until there is a new array of justices on the high court who properly understand the Constitution, I guess the only remedy is to support legislation (S. 987) to create a federal shield law for reporters. Incidentally, most states already have shield laws that protect journalists in state courts, and we have not suffered any terrible crime wave as a result. All those state AGs and DAs somehow manage to live with laws that uphold press freedom and balance it against the imperatives of law enforcement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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January 30, 2014 · 9:33 am

Surveillance state: NSA chief sees threats everywhere

By Christopher B. Daly 

In what universe does it make sense that DNI James Clapper still has his job?

He should have been charged with contempt of Congress for lying under oath and sacked by his boss, President Obama. Instead, there he was yesterday testifying to Congress.

He used the platform Congress gave him to denounce Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who spilled the beans on the illegal and questionable programs and tactics run by imgres3our intelligence agencies. Of course, he blamed Snowden for serious but vague damage done to America. On examination, what he really means is that Snowden made life difficult for our spy agencies. Whether he caused any other kind of damage is unclear. (transcript, anyone?)

To quote the Times:

Mr. Clapper did not give specific examples to bolster his assessment about the damage Mr. Snowden had done. He also did not say whom he believed Mr. Snowden’s accomplices to be.

But he wasn’t finished. Turns out, he sees “threats” everywhere. There are bogeymen all over Asia, the Mideast and Africa. Everywhere he looks, he sees nukes, bio-chem weapons, conspiracies, and an ever-mutating array of threats. Most of these threats are either hypothetical, localized in some faraway place, or intramural disputes between people who are no friends of ours. At the risk of sounding like some kind of neo-isolationist (which I am not), I have to observe that almost none of the threats hinted at by Clapper involve real, credible, imminent attacks on the territory of the United States.

But that’s not the standard for our military-intelligence complex. There, the issue is whether someone presents a threat (of any kind) to something known as “American interests” — a term that has no specific definition. It is so vague and all-encompassing that it could mean almost anything — a kidnapping threat against a U.S. citizen anywhere in the world, for example, or an apolitical piracy operation that menaces U.S. shipping anywhere in the world.

The fact is, not every problem in the world is an American problem, and not every problem in the world has an American solution. But if you are seeking to justify the existence of your agency and get more money for your budget, it behooves you to play up all these “threats.”

Thanks to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, who has emerged as the great skeptic in Congress. (He’s the one Clapper lied to, face to face, last year.) At this week’s hearing, Wyden

said that the dealings between spy agencies and their congressional overseers were crippled by a “culture of misinformation.”

Speaking of executive actions, this is one problem Obama could solve today, without needing an act of Congress. Fire Clapper.

 

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January 7, 2014 · 12:08 pm

Surveillance State: An old-school leak of FBI docs

By Christopher B. Daly

History keeps happening.

Thanks to a new book by former Washington Post journalist Betty Medsger called The Burglary, 51HydAvzamL._AA160_Americans can now see another example of principled, patriotic, non-violent dissenters who made America a better place by risking jail to bring important truths to light. The New York Times has a good story today about it, including a terrific video. More is at NPR.

To set the scene:

–It was a time in American history when we were fighting an undeclared war halfway around the world.

–We were fighting against people whose history, culture, and language we did not understand.

–We could not tell friend from foe.

–With each passing year, the insurgency grew stronger and we never managed to “pacify” any territory.

–American citizens tried to stop the war and were castigated as disloyal, unpatriotic.

–The government engaged in a secret, illegal campaign to find and crush people it considered terrorists.

The year was 1971, at the height of the American war in Vietnam, not 2003 or 2004, at the height of the U.S. “war on terror.” (Instead of al Qaeda, the FBI was targeting domestic “terrorists” like the Weathermen and the Black Panthers) After years of peaceful protests, a small group of anti-war activists decided to try a new tactic: break into an FBI office, remove the files, and divulge the secret contents to the news media.

Here is a template for national security leakers. The break-in described in the new book took place in the Philadelphia suburb of Media, Pa., on March 8, 1971. That very same week, Daniel Ellsberg made his first contact with New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan to discuss divulging the massive secret files that became known as the Pentagon Papers. In both cases, people who found that they could not change policy through normal politics and who could not legally blow the whistle on wrongdoing decided to go outside the law — risking prosecution and jail — in the hope that disclosing secrets would lead to a desirable change.

The comparisons to Edward Snowden are obvious. As a contract employee for the NSA, Snowden learned that the government has built a vast spying operation since 9/11/01 that includes secret top-secret-stampsurveillance of millions of law-abiding Americans in peacetime and that officials hid and lied about.

The anti-war burglars in the Media FBI break-in hurt no one and did almost no property damage (they had to jimmy a lock to get in). As a result of their disclosures, no one died and the sky did not fall. Instead, the disclosures added fuel to the anti-war movement and provided vital clues to the wider disclosures that led to the Church Committee investigation and reforms.

In the Media break-in, the only apparent crime was simple burglary, and the statute of limitations expired long ago. So, there is no question of penalties as these American heroes emerge from the shadows.

 

 

 

 

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January 4, 2014 · 12:02 pm

Surveillance state: The rationale for secrecy is, of course, SECRET

By Christopher B. Daly

top-secret-stampYou may think you are a sovereign citizen of a free country. You may think that “we, the people” rule through elected representatives who are accountable to us. But that would be wrong.

The latest affront to self-government is a ruling issued by a federal appeals court on Friday (beware of Friday rulings). Here’s the background:

Thanks to accused leaker Edward Snowden, we know that the U.S. government runs a secret program in which the government calls on the telephone companies to hand over information about you without a court order or subpoena, even if you are not suspected of any wrongdoing. You were not supposed to know about it, but that cat is now out of the bag.

So, you might want to know where the government gets off concocting such a scheme and how it could possibly square such massive, secret, peacetime spying on law-abiding citizens with the Constitution. Well, too bad. The Obama administration’s lawyers, who wrote a memo in 2010 attempting to justify the whole thing, decided that the memo itself should be kept secret, and President Obama agrees.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and others filed suit seeking to get access to the memo. The government refused. On Friday, Judge Harry T. Edwards said no. EFF can’t see it and neither can we, the people. According to a link-rich story in today’s Times by the redoubtable Charlie Savage, the ruling seems likely to stand.

This is just the latest cause for disappointment in President Obama when it comes to transparency and press freedom. If he wanted to really serve those great causes, he could:

–stop prosecuting and issuing subpoenas to reporters at an unprecedented pace

–stop over-classifying new material as “secret”

–begin reducing the backlog of classified materials that can be de-classified with no harm

–adopt the common-sense reforms recommended by his own task force on surveillance issues.

There are many things to admire about Barack Obama, but his record in this area is not one of them Perhaps it confirms that the Founders were right to be suspicious of executive power per se, regardless of the individual wielding that power. They saw, rightly, that power is by its very nature aggressive, always seeking to expand and never yielding unless forced to do so.

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December 12, 2013 · 6:30 pm

NY court issues a major ruling for press freedom

By Christopher B. Daly 

Invoking journalism history, New York state’s highest court has ruled that under New York’s state constitution and the state’s version of a “shield law,” a journalist cannot be forced to divulge the identity of a confidential source — even if another U.S. state is trying to extract the information. The ruling, issued Tuesday, was a major victory for press freedom, and not just in New York. But it will have its greatest impact in New York, where so much of the news media operate, because now the highest court in that state has ruled that New York’s own laws grant complete immunity to journalists from any attempts to force them to reveal their sources. Since that court is the ultimate interpreter of the New York state constitution, it is a landmark.

It remains to be seen if a New York journalist can use this new ruling as a shield against federal prosecutors. Federal courts are not obligated to follow the New York state court ruling, of course, but any person who gains more rights under a state constitution or law does not forfeit those rights just because federal law has not caught up. The U.S. Constitution and federal laws establish legal minimums that must be afforded to all Americans, but they do not establish maximums. When it comes to our rights, federal law is a floor, not a ceiling.

Briefly, the case involves Jana Winter, a reporter for FoxNews.com. She went to Colorado in 2012 to report on the horrific mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora. Expecting a media frenzy, the local Colorado court imposed a “gag order” — that is, a pre-trial order that tries to limit disclosures to the news media in advance of a trial. During the investigation into the crime, police got hold of a notebook that belonged to the suspect, James Holmes, which he had shared with his psychiatrist. Someone divulged the existence of the notebook to the reporter, along with a summary or description of its contents. Colorado authorities consider that a breach of the gag order, and they are stamping their feet to see who disobeyed. All the cops in Colorado say “it wasn’t me,” so the authorities are turning to the journalist and demanding that she rat out her source so they can punish that person. For that, they want to make her travel 2,000 miles to violate a promise she made to her source(s). If she stands firm and refuses to name names, she goes to jail. If she gives them up, she is ruined as a reporter, and the whole enterprise of news-gathering is undermined because all sources will doubt all reporters when they promise confidentiality. [Winter has absolutely no information that is exclusive to her and based on confidential sources that has any bearing on the commission of the crime itself. All she knows about is which Colorado cop (or cops) violated the gag order. Please.]

Many, many courts would rule against the journalist in these circumstances. Judges normally sympathize with their fellow judges and see things their way. Judges normally do not like to see anyone violate their rulings and get away with it. Judges like the idea that what they say, goes. All of which makes this ruling even more remarkable. It was a win-win: the court expanded legal protections for reporters, and it relied in part on a famous case involving an 18th-century partisan journalist to do so.

Here are versions by the New York Times (which should have put this on page 1, not inside the business section) The New Yorker, TVNewser, and Poynter. (Even Fox News had to come down on the side of press freedom in this case.)

Here is the text of the decision, written by Judge Victoria Graffeo. Among the stories I saw, only Poynter actually linked to the decision, which is disappointing — hey, people, there’s this thing called the Internet; let’s take advantage of it. Besides, the decision is well worth reading in full. It is a pro-freedom primer on the history of the freedom to gather news. Here are some key excerpts:

New York has a long tradition, with roots dating back to the colonial era, of providing the utmost protection of freedom of the press. Our recognition of the importance of safeguarding those who provide information as part of the newsgathering function can be traced to the case of “John Peter Zenger who . . . was prosecuted for publishing articles critical of the New York colonial Governor after he refused to disclose his source” (Matter of Beach v Shanley, 62 NY2d 241, 255 [1984] [Wachtler concurrence]). A jury comprised of colonial New Yorkers refused to convict Zenger — an action widely viewed as one of the first instances when the connection between the protection of anonymous sources and the maintenance of a free press was recognized in the new world. In acknowledging the critical role that the press would play in our democratic society, New York became a hospitable environment for journalists and other purveyors of the written word, leading the burgeoning publishing industry to establish a home in our state during the early years of our nation’s history.

That is an important point: New York did indeed become the nation’s media capital. I doubt that the New York State Constitution was much of a causal factor (compared to all the economic ones), but the fact that the industry is now centered in New York City means that many, many journalists enjoy the favored status granted by this new ruling. And the ruling holds that a New York-based journalist is protected by New York’s constitution even when he or she roams into another state or online to do reporting. What remains to be seen is what might happen when a New York-based journalist attempts to use the new ruling in the Winter case against a federal prosecutor who comes around with a subpoena seeking to force a journalist to name a confidential source in a federal investigation or trial.

Judge Graffeo wrote that the protections offered to journalists in New York are ancient, robust, and multiply determined.

To begin with, she wrote, there is the matter of common law. Before New York was even a state, the jury in the 1735 image-crown-zenger-tryal-pageseditious libel case against the printer John Peter Zenger  established through its not-guilty verdict that Zenger did not have to reveal the identity of the author of the offending article. The Zenger case is usually cited as a precedent for the idea that truth is a valid defense in libel cases, but if Judge Graffeo finds the germ of a “shield law” in there, so be it. (For more on Zenger, see “Covering America,” chap 1)

 

Later, New York citizens wrote and ratified a state constitution. It says, in part:

“Every citizen may freely speak, write and
publish his or her sentiments on all subjects
. . . and no law shall be passed to restrain
or abridge the liberty of speech or of the
press” (NY Const, art I, § 8).

In her reading, that language from 1831 constitutes a shield for journalists all by itself, saying it is more expansive than even the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and thus affords more protections to New Yorkers than other Americans enjoy under the First Amendment alone.

In addition, Graffeo cites New York state law. In 1970, the New York Legislature adopted a “shield law” that includes an absolute legal privilege for journalists who want to protect the identity of their confidential sources. She said that after considering the views of the likes of Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace, the Legislature decided to throw its weight into the balance on the side of reporters. The relevant part of that law says:

no professional journalist or newscaster . . .
shall be adjudged in contempt by any court in
connection with any civil or criminal
proceeding . . . for refusing or failing to
disclose any news obtained or received in
confidence or the identity of the source of
any such news coming into such person’s
possession in the course of gathering or
obtaining news for publication

So, Judge Graffeo concludes, journalists in New York are protected by common law, constitutional law, and statutory law. Now, how hard was that? Why do so many judges fail to understand this reasoning? The ruling holds that all these sources of protection for journalists combine to provide evidence of a clear “public policy” in New York state to encourage the practice of journalism within its borders.

But Judge Graffeo was not finished. She noted that the testimony of the journalists that the New York legislators relied upon arose from another case — that of NYTimes reporter Earl Caldwell. In a footnote, she observed

The affidavits were prepared in connection with a motion
to quash a subpoena in a case that was pending when the Shield
Law was under consideration by the Legislature and which involved
an investigative reporter from the New York Times who was
subpoenaed by a Federal Grand Jury in California to testify
concerning knowledge he obtained about the Black Panther
organization. Two lower courts held that the First Amendment
protected the reporter from being compelled to reveal his sources
or disclose information provided to him in confidence, differing
only on whether the reporter could avoid appearing at the Grand
Jury altogether (Caldwell v United States, 434 F2d 1081 [9th Cir
1970] [reporter could not be compelled to appear at Grand Jury],
vacating 311 F Supp 358 [ND Cal 1970][although required to appear

Caldwell, left, with MLK in Memphis, 1968.

Caldwell, left, with MLK in Memphis, 1968.

at Grand Jury, reporter was entitled to protective order
precluding questioning concerning confidential sources or

information]). However, deciding the case with Branzburg v Hayes
(408 US 665 [1972]), the United States Supreme Court disagreed,
holding that the reporter could not rely on the First Amendment
to avoid appearing and giving evidence in response to a Grand
Jury subpoena.

That was a regrettable decision that journalists lost by an eyelash, only because five judges on the U.S. Supreme Court did not understand the U.S. Constitution as well as these New York judges understand the New York constitution. For more on Caldwell, see Covering America, chap 12. For more on the Supreme Court’s ruling, see earlier blog posts here and here.)

 

The new ruling also sends a message to prosecutors in all the other states: don’t bother going on fishing expeditions. If you send us requests to compel a New York journalist to appear in your state’s courts, those will be denied. The opinion says New York will not tolerate harassment of journalists by subpoenaing them to show up halfway across the country just to assert their immunity under the New York shield law. That would be terribly disruptive to their work. Just leave them alone, the court said. Quoting an earlier case, the ruling states:

“Journalists should be spending their time in newsrooms, not in courtrooms as participants in the litigation process”

It’s thrilling to read a judicial opinion written by a judge who actually understands the meaning of a free press and appreciates its value to society. It’s rare — and therefore, I suppose, all the more thrilling.

0      0       0       0       0       0

 

Finally, a hat-tip to the judge, Victoria Graffeo, the former solicitor general for the state of New York who was appointed to the Court of Appeals by Republican Gov. George Pataki to a 14-year term in 2000. No liberal, Graffeo was expected to be a moderate conservative voice on that important bench. Labels aside, she gets credit for getting the point.

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July 11, 2013 · 11:46 am

Harvard prof backs Wiki-leaker

By Christopher B. Daly 

Not to be missed: Charlie Savage has a story in today’s NYTimes about the defense resting its case in the court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning for his alleged role in the Wikileaks disclosures. The star of the show was Yochai Benkler, a Harvard Law School professor who has been a leading figure in Harvard’s indispensable Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

On a busy news day, the Manning story was somewhat buried in the Times, but it is worth reading — including the link to Benkler’s scholarly paper on Wikileaks.

 

 

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July 10, 2013 · 9:40 pm

Surveillance roundup

[NSA Out]*

*Now, there’s some metadata for you. Back in the day when I worked for the Associated Press, we had to “slug” our material with various directives, indicating who had access to the material and whether users were free to use another news agencies photos or had to use AP photos. We often labeled our “content” with warnings like the one above. I only wish I could label all my emails with a warning to the NSA to leave them alone. Until then, I am looking for a user-friendly encryption system. If you use one that you recommend, please leave a comment below. If you are from the NSA, stop reading NOW.

–If true, this statement from Edward Snowden is important, because it would have a direct bearing on his possible guilt under the Espionage Act.

–If sincere, this statement from a former judge on the super-secret secrecy court is interesting. Like Obama, this guy now welcomes a debate over our policy on secrecy (which was supposed to remain secret, thus preventing the very debate he now welcomes).

–If it weren’t laughable, this story about our allies would be poignant. [“I’m shocked, shocked, to find out that spying is going on here, Rick.”]

BTW, do you have clearance to read this? 

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If not, report yourself to the NSA immediately. Or to one of our allies. Or just wait and let your ISP or telecom company rat you out. 

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June 28, 2013 · 11:20 am

It’s raining leaks!

By Christopher B. Daly 

imgres3Today’s news brings a very curious twist on the theme of national-security leaks. This time, the suspected leaker is not a low-level functionary like Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden but a high-ranking military official — in fact, the former No. 2 in the entire military command structure. According to a report first broken by NBC News, retired Marine Gen. James E. “Hoss” Cartwright is under investigation in connection with the leak of classified information about American cyberattacks against Iran, intended to disable or slow down Iran’s program to build a nuclear weapon. (The coverage in today’s NYTimes is rather circumspect, which makes sense, considering that the Times was the recipient of the leak. The paper quotes NYT executive editor Jill Abramson saying she doesn’t discuss such things.)

I wonder if Cartwright’s rank will make any difference here. After all, he’s not some some “29-year-old hacker,” — as President Obama pooh-poohed Snowden on Thursday, while adroitly trying to keep the Snowden/NSA leak from screwing up great-power relations with China and Russia. (Funny thing: at other times, Obama is quite willing to characterize Snowden as a threat to our very existence. Also, an update: Snowden turned 30 last week.)

Back to Cartwright. Far from being a hacker, Cartwright, who was named vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs by President28stuxnet1-img-articleInline Bush and who served under Obama as well, was at the epicenter of the military/national security power structure. I wonder how the top brass and the national-security establishment feel about leaks now, when one apparently came from one of their own. Where’s the outrage? Will we be seeing Sens. McCain and Graham or former veep Cheney going on Sunday TV talk shows demanding his head?

We might also ask: Why would Hoss Cartwright do such a thing? He’s not commenting, but we can just imagine. Maybe he wanted to see the U.S. get credit for “doing something” about the Iranian threat. Maybe he wanted to let Americans know that we had the technical means to mess up their weapons program without having to attack or invade Iran by conventional means. Maybe he was ordered to make the leak by someone who out-ranked him (perhaps the Chair of the Joint Chiefs, or the National Security Adviser, or the Secretary of Defense, or the President himself?)

The Washington Post, after pointing out that the cyberattack on Iran included a computer virus named Stuxnet and was part of a broader program code-named “Olympic Games,” adds this tantalizing hint:

Cartwright, who helped launch that campaign under President Bush and pushed for its escalation under Obama. . .

Maybe Cartwright thought his favored program was threatened in some way by someone else in the national security apparatus.

As I have long maintained, the reaction to leaking is very much in the eye of the beholder. If the leaker is powerful enough, the act of leaking is not a crime but just politics by another means.

For the record: As far as we know, Cartwright would be the eighth target of an Espionage Act investigation undertaken in the Obama administration’s record-breaking campaign to punish leakers.

Speaking of cyberattacks, U.S. officials seems to be scrambling to find a path through this 28cyber1-img-popuppolicy thicket. On the one hand, Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey is hurrying to write new rules for warfare in cyberspace, according to another article in today’s NYTimes. (Don’t hold your breath waiting to participate in this process yourself: any such rules are classified. So there!) Here’s the takeaway:

[Dempsey] said that, globally, new regulations were needed to govern actions by the world community in cyberspace. He said that the Chinese did not believe that hacking American systems violated any rules, since no rules existed.

And, finally, for an example of what’s at stake in terms of commerce, today’s Boston Globe has an eye-popping story about how the Chinese allegedly steal commercial secrets. If you thought they just stole plans for making plastic tschotschkes, think again. This one involved the design for wind turbines, which the Chinese had the nerve to sell back to us!

It’s enough to make the head spin. How am I supposed to keep up with the Whitey Bulger trial, the Hernandez case, or the trade of both Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to the Brooklyn Nets????

p.s. For a fun and puzzling exercise in mind-games, go to the NYT homepage and enter the term “stuxnet” in the search box. If you can figure out the results, please explain in a comment below. 

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June 17, 2013 · 12:12 pm

NSA Leak: Why not the Times?

By Christopher B. Daly

Since the disclosure of the NSA leaks story, a fair amount of media commentary has focused on the thinking of the self-identified leaker, Edward Snowden, who got access to secrets by working for a government contractor. Many have compared him to Daniel Ellsberg, who got access to secrets by working for a government contractor, then divulged the Pentagon Papers in 1971 to the New York Times. 

Some wonder why Snowden chose to cooperate with Glenn Greenwald (who is a lawyer/activist/blogger/freelancer) rather than a traditional media heavyweight such as the New York Times. Some of the concern is misplaced, I believe, since Snowden also shared his NSA leak with the estimable Barton Gellman of the Washington Post.

As far as the Times goes, the newspaper’s own Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan, aired out the question in her most recent posting.

I think it is worth recalling some of the history of the Pentagon Papers case (which you can read at greater length in chapter 11 of my book, Covering America.) By his own CA cover finalaccount, Ellsberg had a political goal — ending the U.S. war in Vietnam. To that end, he first tried to leak the classified documents to members of Congress, on the theory that they could use their congressional immunity to read the papers aloud on the floor of the House or Senate. Because of their immunity, they could not be prosecuted for anything said as part of the proceedings of Congress and their remarks would be on the public record.

When the office-holders balked, Ellsberg turned his thoughts to the media. There I think it is indicative that he did not approach the Times as an institution. Indeed, the Times — in 1971 — was not well known for challenging the federal government. Instead, Ellsberg was targeting an individual journalist whom he thought he could trust: Neil Sheehan.

Ellsberg and Sheehan had a bit of history. They had met when Ellsberg was serving in the Marines in Vietnam and Sheehan was working for United Press in its Saigon bureau. Ellsberg had a sense that Sheehan was a skeptic about the war. Later, Sheehanimgres-1 joined the Times, and he was working as a reporter in the Times Washington bureau in 1971. Under the terms of employment for Times reporters, he was supposed to keep his political views to himself. On March 28, 1971, Sheehan wrote a lengthy multi-book review for the Times Sunday Book Review in which took seriously the idea that there should be war-crimes trials for the U.S. policy-makers who kept us in Vietnam. When Ellsberg read that review, he knew he had found the right journalist.

Three months later, Sheehan wrote the first front-page article in the series that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

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June 6, 2013 · 1:20 pm

Obama: Wrong on spying, secrecy, leaks.

By Christopher B. Daly

imgres3The outrages just keep piling up. President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and their advisers just don’t get it: the government exists to help the people do the things they want to do but can’t do without joining together. It does not exist for its own sake. It does not exist to expand its own power. It does not exist to spy on its own citizens. As liberals, lawyers, and constitutional scholars, they should know all this. What is wrong with these people?

The latest scandal involves the notorious NSA (for “No Such Agency”). As Glenn Greenwald disclosed in a Guardian exclusive, the NSA is collecting phone records from Verizon for every call made by every Verizon customer, domestic and international. To quote Greenwald:

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

 As they run for cover, the officials involved are going to claim that “it’s all perfectly legal,” because they got a judge to sign off on it, through the special courts set up by the Foreign imagesIntelligence Surveillance Act. (FISA) This is one of many legacies of the over-reaction to the 9/11 attack and the Bush administration’s ensuing “war on terror.” In the name of fighting terror, which is diminishing, U.S. officials in Congress, the executive branch, and the courts have

–unleashed a secretive spy agency

–to spy on Americans

–using a legal OK from a secret court.

It should be noted that, of course, the whole operation is secret. We were never supposed to learn that our phone records are being routinely collected on a vast scale. (Note: as far as we know, they are not recording the content of those calls, only metadata such as the number being called, timing, duration, location, etc.) If it were not for an investigative reporter ferreting out stuff he is not supposed to find out, we the people would never know about this.

It’s possible that the American people, informed of this huge data grab, will decide this is a good and wise thing to do. Fine. If that’s the consensus, I will abide by that. But we at least deserve to know what’s going on and debate whether it is a wise use of our government’s power.

On the subject of leaks, here is a thought exercise: what disclosures of information would you rather NOT know about? Would you want to close your eyes to Abu Gharib? the “Fast and Furious” screw-up? The IRS abuses?

There are countries where secrets stay secret, and I would not want to live in any of them.

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The NSA case brings up another question: why do the telecom companies roll over so readily every time the government comes calling?

Here is a report from the indispensable Electronic Frontier Foundation showing which companies turn over what kinds of data.

Here is an analysis from TNR about why the telecoms are different from social media companies. Worth considering.

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Another question: Does the NSA data grab include phone records for the White House? For the Holder residence? For the home or office numbers of the members of the House and Senate images-1Intelligence committees? For any journalists who have perfectly good reasons to make phone calls to Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and other terror hideouts? Does it include the home phone of the judge who signed the secret order?

 

One more: Does no one remember the Church committee hearings or findings?

Sheesh. 

 

 

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