Want to stop leaks? Don’t do bad things
Alberto Gonzales wants you to know the government is serious about stopping leaks. So serious, in fact, that it might consider prosecuting reporters under espionage laws. Prosecuting journalists would be an interesting method of leak control, when one of the decade’s two most famous leaks came from Bush and Cheney themselves. The other, of course is the NSA wiretapping scandal.
The tone of my column would be quite different if the New York Times were in trouble with the government for, say, disclosing troop movements in Iraq. But in fact NYT is in the doghouse for revealing the NSA’s domestic surveillance program. Americans have a vested interest in knowing what the government is doing. The government, in turn, has an interest in keeping certain things secret. They have certain weapons — the FBI, CIA, and NSA, for starters — to help them keep their secrets. Our weapon is the press. It’s not perfect, but it’s important — it offers a check on what would otherwise be essentially limitless secret powers.
A free press does make incumbents vulnerable to their political opponents. By reporting on warrantless wiretapping, has the NYT reduced Bush’s ability to do his job? Yes. Does personal politics influence which stories reporters pursue? Yes again. But the liberal media have no teeth unless they tell America things America cares about. And according to several polls, Americans don’t support warrantless wiretapping.
There’s an easy way to avoid getting pilloried in the press. Don’t try to do things on the sly that lots of Americans oppose. Don’t couple your wartime spying with a new and enormous domestic surveillance program certain to cause a furor if it is discovered. Remember: the wider you cast your nets, the more likely it is that someone will see. And don’t blame the press if they expose you. That’s their job.
The press can be a political instrument. It can weaken the President at a time when we might wish our leaders to be strong. But it’s also the only thing standing between us and government information control — the kind they have in China and Iran. To paraphrase Voltaire, we may disapprove of the press sometimes. But if we want to protect our way of life, we must defend it.