A Public Debate on Secrecy
By Steve Fennessy ’07
Bob Woodward, Jill Abramson and Greta Van Susteren discuss journalists’ waning access to government information.
On February 6th of this year, some dubious history was made. Josh Wolf, a 24-year-old videographer, marked his 169th day in federal custody, becoming the longest-incarcerated journalist in American history. Wolf is behind bars for refusing to hand over to authorities un-aired video of a San Francisco demonstration that turned violent.
Wolf ’s case is an extreme example of a disturbing trend—disturbing at least for those who believe that the Fourth Estate is most eff ective when it can cover stories without fear of government reprisal. Yet since 9/11, prosecutors have clamped down on journalists who are ferreting out secret information, who write stories based on confi - dential sources, who are, in short, rocking the boat.
Such was the topic of the Knight-Wallace Fellows annual public policy conference in early January. “Covering the New Secrecy” drew some of the biggest names in journalism— Bob Woodward of Th e Washington Post, Jill Abramson of Th e New York Times, Greta Van Susteren of Fox News and Jackie Northam of NPR, among them—as well as the very government offi cials who wield the “confi dential” stamps that have kept so much of the public’s business from the eyes of the public. Hundreds of students, academics, journalists and concerned citizens turned out to hear what the experts had to say at the conference, which was also broadcast on C-SPAN.
“As with any social compact, citizens cede certain authorities to their national leaders in order to provide for the common good, to include increased security from threats both foreign and domestic. In such a context, the exercise of secrecy is a very legitimate tool of government power,” said J. William Leonard, who directs the federal Philip Dattilo Information Security Oversight Offi ce, which decides what documents the public cannot see.
While few of the panelists could quibble with Leonard’s premise—recruiting spies in other countries would be next to impossible, for example, if we couldn’t guarantee them confi dentiality— some of the guest speakers worried that authorities have carried their crusade to realms where little is at stake except the risk of government embarrassment.
Eve Burton, general counsel for Hearst Corporation, said that in the past two years, no fewer than 22 journalists have been subject to efforts by the government to seek access to their confi dential sources. And many of those stories have nothing to do with national security, but rather benign topics such as whether pro baseball players are taking performance enhancing drugs.
“If the press is no longer free to report freely in this country, then we will eff ectively learn less about government and less about government corruption,” Burton said.
Th e rush to classify information has been felt by scientists, according to Steven Aft ergood of the National Federation of Scientists. “Entire libraries of scientifi c information have been removed from public access,” he said. Aeronautical maps, satellite orbit data, technical reports—all information that had once been available to the public—have now been locked up.
“If you are not a scientist, should you care about any of this? Th e answer is yes,” Aft ergood said. “Democratic governance is intertwined with and analogous to the practice of science. Both involve the open discussion of data and the testing of theory against experience. By curtailing public access to information, we undermine our ability to uncover errors and to learn from experience.”
Leonard Niehoff , a First Amendment attorney who teaches media law at the University of Michigan Law school, said a democracy is healthiest when the people know a lot about their government, and their government knows little about them. Now, with programs such as the domestic eavesdropping, that paradigm has been turned on its head.
Greta Van Susteren, who anchors Fox News’ “On the Record,” called on the public to demand that journalists be given greater protections. “If you want more information, if you believe more information is the bedrock of democracy, you need to fi gure out a way to help us,” she said. “Congress is sitting up there on Capitol Hill. Th ey can pass legislation to protect reporters.”
Leonard said that if voters are unhappy with the fervor with which the government is classifying documents, they can voice their disapproval through the electoral process. But Woodward, whose legendary reporting on Watergate led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, said the voting booth isn’t sufficient.
“We deal on a much shorter time frame [than elections],” Woodward said. “Richard Nixon stood his last election in 1972 and was going to be in offi ce until 1977, but he was held accountable for what occurred in Watergate. You can’t always wait ‘til the next election. Th e press has to be much more aggressive and operate in the time frame that we live in. Th e concentration of power is unsafe, whether the government has too much power or the press has too much power.
“Of all the things we have to worry about, the thing we ought to worry about most is secret government,” Woodward said. “It’s true that democracies die in darkness. And if we get secret government, that takes us back to Nixon. That’s what Nixon tried and failed at.”
