HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017206.jpg

4.2.12
WC: 191694

Chapter 7 Disclosure of Secrets: From Pentagon Papers to Wikileaks

The conflict between national security and free expression is a real one. It must be confronted and resolved by every society committed to civil liberties yet concerned for its safety. In this respect, the situation is different from the alleged conflicts that motivate the censorship of supposedly obscene material: in most obscenity cases, the “conflict” is contrived and need not exist at all. There is ample room in a diverse and free society for accommodating the desires of those who get pleasure from porn and those who feel the need to be protected from the intrusion of offensive material. The guiding principle that “your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose” suggests a workable approach to the regulation of merely offensive material. But there is no simple rule for the accommodation of free expression and national security, where the expression may expose our security to real danger.

No reasonable person can dispute the reality that there are “necessary secrets,” like the names of spies, the movement of troops, the contents of codes and ciphers, the location of satellites and the nature of secret weapons. Nor can any student of history doubt that there are unnecessary secrets, like old and useless information that remains classified by bureaucratic inertia. There is also information kept secret under the pretext of national security but really in order to protect the reputation or electability of government officials. And then there is the most interesting category of secrets — those that are genuinely designed to protect national security in the short run, but whose disclosure may well serve the national interest in the long run. (An example of this last category, at least with the benefit of hindsight, was the decision by The New York Times to withhold publication of the Kennedy administration’s imminent intention to invade the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. Had it disclosed this information, the fiasco might have been called off, many lives saved and America’s reputation less tarnished.)

The most controversial genre are secrets whose disclosure would, in the reasonable views of the government, endanger national security, but whose disclosure, in the equally reasonable view of the press, might ultimately serve the national interest. The real issue is not whether such secrets should be published, since that question will often be a close one about which well-intentioned people will disagree. The real issue, as it often is in a democracy, is who should be entrusted to make this real-time decision.

The other difficult issue is not whether, but when to publish. In a democracy, there should be no permanent secrets, since history and accountability are paramount. The public must ultimately know everything its government has done in its name, but sometimes it is necessary to postpone publication until an immediate danger has passed, since in the modern world, there is no way of disclosing secrets to friends without also disclosing them to enemies.

There is no “one size fits all” solution to this daunting conflict, but there are some useful guidelines in striking the proper balance. In the first place, the vast majority of claims that national security will be endangered by free expression are simply not true; most such claims are probably not even believed by the government officials who assert them. The talismanic phrase “national security” is often invoked as a transparent cover for convenience, for political advantage, and for protection from personal or political embarrassment. Every claim of national

119

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017206