Journalistic discretion
Bob Woodward’s new book, A War Within, is out, and is generating headlines with the report that the Bush administration spied on many in the Iraqi government, including Prime Minister Maliki. (With Maliki, it was apparently successful enough to “know everything he says.”) I really think the inclusion of this piece of information was a substantial failure of discretion on Woodward’s part. Of course we were spying on the Iraqi government. It would have been negligent not to spy on them. There were death squads working for the Interior Ministry, and some people seem offended that we didn’t just trust them on principle. It’s offensive, they say, that we were spying on an ally.
This reaction is incredibly naive. Almost every country on earth has an intelligence program, and they all spy on each other, including their allies. The US, for example, gets spied on by Israel and spies on France. It’s not all bad — if your ally has a spy in your government, they know your promises to them aren’t lies, and there’s a lot more trust all around. Good or bad, though, it’s business as usual. No government is really particularly surprised or offended by it. Their populations are, though, so the government has to act as if it’s a horrible surprise.
And this is exactly why I don’t think Woodward should have published what he did. It angers Iraqis and damages the chance of success there. (It should be noted that “success” in this case isn’t just something that’s good for the US, but pretty uncontroversially good for everyone.) It’s harmful, but has no particular value to public discourse. The spying isn’t controversial amongst anyone with the power to do anything about it.
There is, of course, a more complicated issue here. The information in question was probably classified. Clearly Woodward has a legal right to print it, but the person who told him the info was probably breaking the law. In an investigation, Woodward could be called to testify and imprisoned if he didn’t reveal his sources. Would it be proper to undertake these investigations and punishments? Would it be better if they weren’t legally available?
The real problem with the shield law debate is that intuitions vary so much based on the information in question. If the government has a secret program to burn down the houses of everyone who voted against the incumbent party, and you know it, you should leak it. No one will disagree with this, and you’d probably have a parade thrown in your honor. If instead you leak technical diagrams of US military weaponry, and the Washington Post publishes them on the front page, no one would support the Post, and everyone would support an investigation to find the leak. The dilemma, of course, is that any law punishes someone for leaking (or printing) classified information applies equally well in both cases. You can’t write an “unless it was good” exception.
In the end, I’m inclined to accept the status quo here. It’s very unusual for reporters to be supboenaed and their ability to report stays intact. (I disagree with those who want Woodward fired/subpoenaed/whatever. I don’t think he should have printed this, but he has some very good stuff about why violence is decreasing in Iraq, and to have some subjective, unpredictable standard is going to silence a lot of good reporting.) There is, though, some risk. When you leak something idiotic, like the identity of a CIA agent, there is definitely some danger of jail time. I feel uncomfortable depending so heavily on prosecutorial discretion, which can easily be political, but I don’t see any better alternative here.