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ACLU: Selective Leaks Worst of All Worlds for Free Speech
Selective Leaks Worst of All Worlds for Free Speech
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative
As the election summer heats up, Republicans in Congress are making hay with what they claim are selective leaks by the Obama administration, designed to bolster the president’s national security cred. At a Senate Judiciary hearing yesterday, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) went so far as to call for Attorney General Holder’s resignation in part because of the leak issue. While the jury is decidedly out on the merits of these claims, these questions do need to be asked. If there is one thing more dangerous than over-classification of government information, it’s selective declassification for political gain.
At issue are two recent New York Times long-form articles, one on the president’s targeted killing program and the other on the Stuxnet virus, which is alleged to have been created by American and Israeli signals intelligence and was apparently designed to handicap the Iranian nuclear program. Both stories featured multiple leaks of classified information from anonymous senior government sources. Both stories also made the president look like a super-hero.
<...>
Congress’s response illustrates precisely why. Every time this happens, instead of pushing for greater transparency and declassification, Congress turns into a plumber trying to plug all the leaks. The bipartisan leaders of the intelligence committees are no exception, and are contemplating including language in the 2013 intelligence authorization bill to further punish leaking.
But the damage of selective leaks goes much further than just providing traction to anti-leak bills.
Usually, leaks are a very good thing for democracy and free speech, as Professor Bruce Ackerman writes in an excellent op-ed this morning. They are essential tools in creating an informed populace, encouraging free and robust debate and providing a check against government excess. We protect whistleblowers and the press for exactly this reason. Selective leaking, which can be distinguished from the typical leak by the extent to which it serves to suppress rather than increase transparency and accuracy of information about government affairs, does the opposite. It serves only to misinform the populace, discourage free and open debate and, indeed, facilitate government excess.
- more -
http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/selective-leaks-worst-all-worlds-free-speech
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative
As the election summer heats up, Republicans in Congress are making hay with what they claim are selective leaks by the Obama administration, designed to bolster the president’s national security cred. At a Senate Judiciary hearing yesterday, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) went so far as to call for Attorney General Holder’s resignation in part because of the leak issue. While the jury is decidedly out on the merits of these claims, these questions do need to be asked. If there is one thing more dangerous than over-classification of government information, it’s selective declassification for political gain.
At issue are two recent New York Times long-form articles, one on the president’s targeted killing program and the other on the Stuxnet virus, which is alleged to have been created by American and Israeli signals intelligence and was apparently designed to handicap the Iranian nuclear program. Both stories featured multiple leaks of classified information from anonymous senior government sources. Both stories also made the president look like a super-hero.
<...>
Congress’s response illustrates precisely why. Every time this happens, instead of pushing for greater transparency and declassification, Congress turns into a plumber trying to plug all the leaks. The bipartisan leaders of the intelligence committees are no exception, and are contemplating including language in the 2013 intelligence authorization bill to further punish leaking.
But the damage of selective leaks goes much further than just providing traction to anti-leak bills.
Usually, leaks are a very good thing for democracy and free speech, as Professor Bruce Ackerman writes in an excellent op-ed this morning. They are essential tools in creating an informed populace, encouraging free and robust debate and providing a check against government excess. We protect whistleblowers and the press for exactly this reason. Selective leaking, which can be distinguished from the typical leak by the extent to which it serves to suppress rather than increase transparency and accuracy of information about government affairs, does the opposite. It serves only to misinform the populace, discourage free and open debate and, indeed, facilitate government excess.
- more -
http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/selective-leaks-worst-all-worlds-free-speech
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