Freedom of the Press... or Espionage?

The recent charges against the Senate Intelligence Committee security staffer for leaking to a New York Times reporter bring up some philosophical issues. Having a free press is certainly important to exposing malfeasance by government officials, and anyone else for that matter. If the government controls the press, there is no way for the average citizen to get any information except government propaganda. Some would say that the internet allows more exchange of information but a huge portion of the information available on the internet is fictitious and agenda-driven.

The one side is that the press needs to be free to expose corruption. On the other hand, the fact that you are a journalist is not a license to print or electronically publish anything that you want to publish. Recently, we have seen journalists publishing illegally-obtained classified material. That is quite a tight rope to walk. If the government is hiding nefarious activities by classifying things that should not be hidden, the journalist is performing a great public service. On the other hand, if a journalist publishes information that is not appropriate, intelligence operatives and foreign helpers get killed or weapons systems get compromised, endangering the nation.

In theory, journalists are supposed to be smart enough to decide which is which. We now know that most are not. That is why, in the past, their were vastly experienced editors at major newspapers and radio/television outlets that made those kinds of decisions, after very careful consideration.

The other presumption was always that the journalists had the best interests of the nation at heart. That is also no longer true. When classified material is published solely for the purposes of a political agenda, the journalists are no longer objective journalists, they are communication officers for a particular political group. One great historical example of this is when Newsweek spiked the Michael Isikoff story about President Clinton having an affair with a White House intern, solely for political reasons. It was only when The Drudge Report published a story about Newsweek killing the article that the whole story came out. Since the majority of the media outlets in the country are liberal-leaning, there have been a lot more "leaks" recently in an attempt to embarrass the current administration. That is to be expected since they disagree with the current policies.

A New York Times reporter had her phone records looked at to determine who was leaking the information. That is how they caught the Intelligence committee staffer. That is a mixed bag. On the one hand, we don't want the government to have free reign to examine everyone's phone records whenever they want. On the other hand, we want to catch people performing illegal activities, which potentially endanger people, for their own political agenda.

This is a tough issue to resolve no what which side you support. If everyone was smart and had the best of intentions, it wouldn't be an issue.