Plugging fire with water

White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks: Sources, Reporters Could Be Prosecuted

Dan Eggen in the Post: The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.

In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.

Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program, according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers are also considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking.

In a little-noticed case in California, FBI agents from Los Angeles have already contacted reporters at the Sacramento Bee about stories published in July that were based on sealed court documents related to a terrorism case in Lodi, according to the newspaper.

Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation, and that they have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House.

"There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors," said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. "I don't know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad."

President Bush has called the NSA leak "a shameful act" that was "helping the enemy," and said in December that he was hopeful the Justice Department would conduct a full investigation into the disclosure.

It's scary in many ways; as well as being nonsensical. What better way to hurt the enemy than by cleaning up our act? What's more American than exposing wrongs and pushing society to right them?

Keller's quote hits the nail on the head. Democracy is messy, unpredictable and yes, at times, maybe even dangerous. But it's better than a fascist state.

If reporters are hauled before hearings and asked about their sources, I think they should name names--not just the ones being asked about, but also times when the inquisitors have themselves been the source of leaks. Who knows what else a chatty reporter might decide to start revealing.

I think the administration would find out pretty quickly this war against people who buy their ink by the barrels is about as well thought out as the quagmire in Iraq.

April 23, 1994 cartoon of Richard Nixon by Pat Oliphant.