National Security Ethics

Do you release "classified information" to the public when it can harm national security? This is the big question that sometimes faces journalists.

So of the SPJ Code of Ethics, the 2 major ones to think about here are:

1. Seek the truth and report it
2. Minimize harm

We talked about 3 major cases involving the press and national security:

The Pentagon Papers:

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg gave the New York Times, and later the Washington Post and Boston Globe, photocopies of the Pentagon Papers that contain information on the U.S.'s involvement, politically and militarily, in Vietnam.

The Department of Justice argued that the publication of the Pentagon Papers was "detrimental to U.S. national security."

Case goes to U.S. Supreme Court 6-3 in the media's favor. The Supreme Court said that the government "failed to prove harm to national security, and that publication of the papers was justified under the First Amendment's protection of freedom of the press."

Bradley (Chelsea) Manning:

In 2010, WikiLeaks published a video it called "Collateral Murder."The video showed a U.S. Army helicopter in Iraq firing on what they thought were military insurgents. They believed the men were carrying an RPG and other weapons. In reality, the men were Reuters reporters carrying video equipment along with other civilians.

Manning also gave WikiLeaks incident reports from the Afghanistan, Iraq wars, information on detainees at Guantanamo, and thousands of State Department cables. 

During his trial, prosecutors said the video was a matter of national security because “militants could learn about American military tactics by watching the video” and that the release of the reports hurt the war effort. 

Those who supported Manning said that “low-level reports could not have hurt ongoing operations but did provide the public with a better understanding of the war."

Edward Snowden:

Snowden leaked information about U.S. surveillance programs under the NSA to the Washington Post and the Guardian.

In a note to the Washington Post, he wrote "My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them."

This information included the fact that the NSA collects data on all phone calls made on the Verizon network and that the PRISM program collects the Internet data of foreigners from major Internet companies.

U.S. officials said that the release of this information has hurt national security. Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner said, “Americans are at risk, it shows our adversaries what our capabilities are, and it’s a giant violation of the law.”

But others, like the Guardian, said that he “will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers.”

Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwood said: “There is no national security harm from letting people know that they are collecting all phone records, that they are tapping into the Internet, that they are planning massive cyber attacks both foreign and even domestic. These are things that the American people have a right to know. The only thing that’s being damaged is the credibility of political officials in the way that they exercise power in the dark.”

Questions:

So what are your thoughts? Was the press right in publishing the information in all of these cases? Or would you have done it differently? How can the press know if the information will hurt national security? And if the information does have the potential to harm our national security, is it better to just avoid publishing it?

Videos:

• "Collateral Murder"
• Ellsberg talking about Manning
• The Pentagon Papers