Associated Effects

Madame M:

No guesses here this morning.  I might change my mind in a future post.  We’ll see. :)

My posting will be in the morning this week, and probably next week as well.  Such scheduling difficulties!

Those difficulties permit me only a brief foray into an additional “scandal.  Yes, it was deliberate of me to use only one quotation, for it is half a scandal.  I refer to the Associated Press matter.

The Associated Press is the last great national “feeder” or “collection” organization, a sort of grand central station for news.  It gets its info from its many members, and usually has a built in multi-check on accuracy because of it. 

This particular matter in the limelight has the CIA involved as well.  Their (and the administration’s) control-fetish was a bit sloppy, poorly coordinated, internally inconsistent, and excessive.  Al Qaeda has been plotting for some time to blow up cargo planes to shake world commerce, but airliners have also never left their sights.  In this instance, a major plot was foiled, and then the press and non-governmental expert or experts reported that it was because we had an agent on the inside.  Agents on the inside of close-knit terrorist organizations are very hard to obtain (and for long), so this leak, coming on top of other leaks, was momentous.   While the government scrambled to help their now cover-blown insider to safety (there are contradictory reports that it failed and succeeded), the call for an investigation into the leaks was strong from Republicans and even was bipartisan in some instances.

To expose the government doing repressive or unaccountable or utterly self-serving things, or harmful things in our name that would enrage us if we knew about them: those are what we need the press to do, and their privilege to do so should be sacrosanct.  Revealing something that legitimately needed to remain a secret, just to give the reporter or organization a leg up, however, is an abuse of this privilege—and maybe a crime.  Especially problematic are those outside the media who do the leaks not out of patriotism but out of spite or personal advantage.

The administration says it tried to strike a balance in looking into this serious matter, one where a valuable inside informant was compromised, and made useless for any help in foiling similar plots in the future—and one where that informant’s life was endangered.  It wanted phone records, to see where the leaks might have come from.  It did not want transcripts (if they existed), and it did not want phone or other taps. 

Now we have a collision between two justifiable needs: the government’s need to protect information of vital interest to our nation’s security (as well as keep someone from being murdered), and the press’s need to be able to rely on unnamed (and untraceable) sources to help preserve our freedoms and keep the citizenry informed.

In this case, the burden is on the DOJ and the administration to demonstrate that theirs was the more vital need, and that this was extraordinary and not going to be routine.  A tough sell.  Why is the burden on them?  Because of the chilling effect the DOJ’s actions will likely have on future informants and leakers when we really need them.  A danger to this already fragile democratic republic.  The needs of immediacy must be weighed against the needs of the future, and second and third (and further) order effects weigh the heaviest. 

I have said for a long time that the press/media need to appoint, and the government needs to accept, one or more of their representatives to serve 4 year terms as “secrecy arbitrators.”  That is, the press/media need to have one or more of their own to say “I agree” or “I disagree” when the government wants to keep something secret.   That would go far in restoring trust (and reducing angst) on all sides, as well as serve the country and its citizens better.

Absent that, we are going to have this markedly clunky and uneasy arrangement we have had for some time.  And perhaps more half scandals.