Of Leaks, Lie Detector Tests, and National Security
The firing last week of a CIA agent for leaking information about secret CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe has produced a flurry of debate. Criticism of the Administration has most commonly taken the form of accusations of hypocrisy. While its own leaks (even to punish political opponents) are okay, leaks by others meant to expose government misconduct are firable offenses. Juan Cole at Informed Comment best captures this view, in his post "All Right, Not All Right." Yet, whether or not the Administration is behaving hypocritically is really besides the point, because what the episode most speaks to is a transformation in how our government views public access to information.
Since 1945, the U.S. has developed, largely within the executive branch, an extensive bureaucratic apparatus organized around providinig domestic and international security. Rather than conducting government's business in the open, such a national security state operates through the flow of secret information. The lack of publicity in turn amplifies concerns with accountability and the misuse of state power. Today, one of the central features of the "war on terror" is its ability to extend such secrecy by enveloping much of government action within the domain of security.
A system of leaks has been the primary way in which, despite such secrecy, citizens have continued to gain access to information. Just think back to the Pentagon Papers. In essence, while government officials assert that journalists have no right to classified material, if somehow such material reaches the press, journalists are free to publish it. Although such a system is far from ideal, leaks do shed some light on state behavior -- particularly in the context of an active and investigative press. In a sense, what the Administration is actually doing these days is shutting down the prevailing mode of publicity. As the NY Times reported today, the CIA has given dozens of special polygraph tests to its employees in an effort to squash any future leaks.
The real problem for citizens, then, is not Administration hypocrisy, but its commitment to eliminating leaks as such and creating a rigid executive discipline. Given the remarkable compliance of the elite press, and the general trends away from investigative journalism, we may well be witnessing a shift of great significance. A government operating largely in secret, with few remaining avenues for public access and accountability, is anti-democratic to its core. Reclaiming democratic government therefore begins by prying open this national security apparatus.
Since 1945, the U.S. has developed, largely within the executive branch, an extensive bureaucratic apparatus organized around providinig domestic and international security. Rather than conducting government's business in the open, such a national security state operates through the flow of secret information. The lack of publicity in turn amplifies concerns with accountability and the misuse of state power. Today, one of the central features of the "war on terror" is its ability to extend such secrecy by enveloping much of government action within the domain of security.
A system of leaks has been the primary way in which, despite such secrecy, citizens have continued to gain access to information. Just think back to the Pentagon Papers. In essence, while government officials assert that journalists have no right to classified material, if somehow such material reaches the press, journalists are free to publish it. Although such a system is far from ideal, leaks do shed some light on state behavior -- particularly in the context of an active and investigative press. In a sense, what the Administration is actually doing these days is shutting down the prevailing mode of publicity. As the NY Times reported today, the CIA has given dozens of special polygraph tests to its employees in an effort to squash any future leaks.
The real problem for citizens, then, is not Administration hypocrisy, but its commitment to eliminating leaks as such and creating a rigid executive discipline. Given the remarkable compliance of the elite press, and the general trends away from investigative journalism, we may well be witnessing a shift of great significance. A government operating largely in secret, with few remaining avenues for public access and accountability, is anti-democratic to its core. Reclaiming democratic government therefore begins by prying open this national security apparatus.
3 Comments:
It seems that there is another, more insidious, dimension to this, namely the creeping way in which leaks and other talk about "open secrets" have supplanted and eroded public discourse in general. Let us keep in mind two facts: first, that according to some estimates 90% of what is classified is either already in the public sphere or otherwise completely banal (here is one classic howler) and second, that leaks are not always a means of holding government accountable but have also long been used to advance the agendas of those in power. Indeed, the flip-side of the Bush administration's famous penchant for secrecy has been its skillful manipulation of journalists through selective leaking of lies. Recall the most egregious case, namely Cheney's September 2002 "Meet the Press" interview, one of his first major moves in building support for the invasion, in which he claims that his WMD claims are backed by information that he can't yet discuss because it's still classified -- before turning to that day's New York Times cover story on the now-infamous "aluminum tubes," a story very likely based on leaks from his own office!
In her analysis of the Pentagon Papers, Hannah Arendt noted how the environment of secrecy and its allure could contribute to a kind of groupthink that she called “defactualization.” This observation of course resonates with the vicissitudes of contemporary U.S. politics, but there is one crucial difference: with greater parts of the government, to say nothing of journalists, think tanks, and others increasingly "in on the secret" of classified material, the mesmerizing power of "intelligence" seems to have spread, and with it the contagion of "defactualization." The most charitable interpretation of this is that the Judith Millers of the U.S. media were busy chasing secret tidbits from government officials about Iraq's stockpiles of WMD instead of just reading the voluminous amounts of publicly available data, which provided more than enough evidence _before the war_ to demonstrate that no such weapons would be found (as Glen Rangwala's painstaking and largely unrecognized work demonstrates.
Now that open secrets are increasingly the bread and butter of public discourse in this country (9/11 commission, WMD scandal, Plame Leak Affair, NSA wiretapping, CIA prisons), there are two dangers: First, and a general one that this blog admirably focuses on, we have allowed the pin-headed questions of "who knew what, and when?" to distract from the actual issues at stake, be they war, torture, or whatever. Second, it is crucial to bear in mind that leaks are always somewhat dangerous as they are forms of _unaccountable speech_. When you leak or otherwise speak about open secrets, you are making a statement that you somehow cannot take responsibility for. At their best, leaks prompt demands for verification and investigation that then bring new facts into the visible public space where they can be debated. They work only as extraordinary measures, break-downs in the system that cry out for redress. But without that follow-through, leaks can easily fade into the ether and poison the atmosphere, not least with the stench of warmongering.
Using your "Judith Miller example," dar, is it not the case that responsible, professional journalists are expected to be able to distinguish between apparent and real leaks?
Knowing as she did (we all did!) that the Bush administration was hell-bent on convincing the nation to support its war against Saddam, what service did Ms. Miller imagine she was rendering by reporting leaks of so-called classified information which supported the administration's case? Why not tell them to do their leaking at a press conference?
Ellen1910: We don't disagree at all. My remark about Miller was not meant to whitewash the fact that she played an active role in the dissemination of warmongering falsehoods. I was merely trying to stress that the constant duty to distinguish between true and false information -- whether it is endowed with the aura of a leak or not -- can always only take place in relation to transparently verifiable facts. In this particular example, I was trying to stress that even if Miller had been acting in good faith ("the most charitable interpretation"), the most powerful means of weighing the info she was getting from the administration would be to check it against the established and voluminous public record -- UN inspectors' reports, previous Congressional inquiries on Gulf War syndrome, eyewitness accounts, etc.
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