Media refuses to meet with Holder

I really hate it when I'm at odds with journalists I like and respect, (there's more of them than you might think), about the leak investigations. In the latest twist in the storyline, most of the major media heads are refusing to meet off the record with AG Holder to discuss the matter. I'm sorry to have to say this ends up looking like they care more about pumping up a so-called scandal than finding a solution to the problem.

It's too weird to find myself in agreement with the WaPo and Politico who so far are the only major news orgs willing to say wait a minute, we routinely have off-the-record conversations with the government, so we're going to the meeting. The rest of them are coming off as entirely off base. Or in other words, as this tweet points out:

@AlecMacGillis: Exactly. The piousness on this is a bit much. RT @jackshafer: News organizations that go off the record all the time suddenly get picky.

Hells bells. It's supposed to a gripe session, not a fucking press conference. It's not like they're going to be writing policy or making some secret pact. And frankly, I don't blame Holder for wanting it off the record. Who can't predict how that would go. They would spend an hour or two discussing the problem and all that would be reported is some out of context, off the cuff remark to draw traffic in the slow news cycle of summer.

Meanwhile, out in the real world, outside of the insider bubble, not seeing any sympathy for the solipsism. Media might want to take notice:

@BrettLoGiurato: This is perhaps the clearest indication about how the public feels about AP, Fox leak investigations:



Click through on that link to read the responses. My personal favorite being, "Sheesh. Go after the leaker, not the journo."

Funny. Last I looked, no journos were being hauled into court for national security reporters "standard operating practices." The only ones paying the price are the inside sources they convinced to breach their contractual agreements and the law simply for a "scoop" that didn't even expose any government wrongdoing. Seems to me the sources are the real victims here.

All that being said, I'm not without empathy for the media in this. I understand the pressure to produce traffic. What worries me is when inside sources are squandered for stories that don't expose government misconduct for short term gain, then when real misconduct occurs, the sources will be too afraid to come foreward. Not seeing how that serves anyone in the long run.

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News Corp can't find DoJ notice on Rosen subpoena

Well how interesting. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation says they don't know nothing 'bout any subpoena:

News Corporation said on Sunday that it had no record of being notified by the Justice Department nearly three years ago of a subpoena for the telephone records of a reporter at its Fox News cable channel.

The company’s chief legal counsel at the time also said that he had never seen material from the government related to the subpoena.

The Justice Department says they notified News Corporation on Aug. 27, 2010, that it had seized Rosen phone records by fax, email, and certified letter, as it the custom in all legal matters.

You may remember that this is the same News Corporation that claimed for months on end it didn't know nothing 'bout phone hacking and police bribery until the proof finally caught up with them. But hell, they pretty much got away with lying about that without any major punishment, so why wouldn't Murdoch's US enterprise lie about this now?

Not making any accusations until the facts are all in, but thinking the circumstantial evidence and history is on the DoJ's side. Surely DoJ will have copies of the notifications. Lawyers never throw anything away.

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Why I don't defend Rosen or the government

It seems my friend Dan at Pruning Shears and I are having a disagreement. I don't think we're actually as far apart on the government surveillance of the media as he does. I think I made rather clear in my earlier post on James Rosen and also on the AP records grab that I don't condone secret government surveillance on the media -- or anyone. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that the government conducted these investigations illegally. The laws that make it possible have been creeping into our judicial system long before the Obama administration arrived. And let's not lose sight of the fact that Rosen isn't being charged with a crime regardless of the dicey allegations made by the government to get its authorization for his records.

Booman and I differ on that point. I don't consider Rosen a criminal. I think he's an irresponsible journalist. Rosen's email to his source made clear his main interest was in scooping his competitors, not in changing any policy. However, his piece was written in a way that revealed our intelligence operation. If he had simply done the usual anon source says N. Korea will blah, blah blah... without revealing we had an inside source in N. Korea and had lost track of their missiles, I wouldn't have seen it as damaging.

While Dan Ellsberg would probably disagree, I don't see any comparison between the Pentagon Papers and what Rosen did. The Pentagon Papers revealed serious government misconduct. Our government lied to the people and to Congress. Big lies that resulted in tens of thousands of lost lives. That was whistleblowing in the service of public interest. I'm wondering what government wrongdoing Dan sees as having been revealed by Rosen.

I don't suggest we blindly accept every government claim of acting in the interest of national security while they abridge our civil rights. We need to look no further than the odious NSLs the Bush administration was so fond of to see the danger in that. But neither do I trust the motives of our present day media so much that I'm willing to unequivocally defend them. Surely Jon Karl and his anon source who provided altered emails to perpetrate a false GOP narrative would suggest our skepticism should go both ways. What good is a free media if they lie to us too, or jeopardize our intelligence assets, simply to drive traffic? As far I'm concerned neither secret surveillance nor irresponsible journalism should be defended. We deserve better from both sides

[Crossposted at my long dormant FDL account]

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You can't yell fire in a crowded theater

Well we have a brand new brouhaha about surveillance on a journalist. Today it's James Rosen of Fox News over a story he published in 2009 about North Korea, based on an insider leak. To be clear, it's important to protect journalists. It's equally important to protect leakers when they're exposing government wrongdoing. But once again, this is not really the case here.

I'll spare you my thoughts on how ineptly they covered their tracks. Hell they were practically asking to get caught, but here's my big problem with James Rosen's reporting. His motive appears to more about career enhancement than truth telling.

[Rosen] also wrote, according to the affidavit: “What I am interested in, as you might expect, is breaking news ahead of my competitors” including “what intelligence is picking up.” And: “I’d love to see some internal State Department analyses.”

I've read a few posts about this today and noticeably missing from most of them, is a link to Rosen's original article. Here, via Booman, is the key flaw in his reporting.

What's more, Pyongyang's next nuclear detonation is but one of four planned actions the Central Intelligence Agency has learned, through sources inside North Korea, that the regime of Kim Jong-Il intends to take -- but not announce -- once the Security Council resolution is officially passed, likely on Friday.

As Booman explains:

It's important that the policy advisers and policymakers inside our government know if the intelligence they are reading is coming from straight inside the Pyongyang government. It is equally critical that the North Korean government not know that.

If someone in Pyongyang sticks their neck out to talk to the CIA, they should not be reading about it the next week on the Fox News web page. The government was basically forced to try to figure out who leaked that information, and the only thing that should be up for debate is how far the government should be able to go to solve the mystery.

I'd add I'm not sure it was in the national interest to tell North Korea we lost track of their missle movement either, but I guess that's a judgment call. Thinking it's better the North Koreans not know that, but an argument could be made that the public has the right to know.

In any case, in striking a balance between national security and protected speech, there are competing interests. This is point worth remembering as we seek to strike that balance.

Adam Weinstein: We as journalists have the right to work with leakers to report the truth. The gov. has the right, within the laws, to find/punish leakers.

First Amendment protections are not absolute. The press enjoys greater protection than most of us. The onus is on them to use it responsibly. I have to agree with Booman. This is yet another case where it wasn't.

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I'll take self-serving traffic baiting for $1000 Alex

I love Alex Pareene. I wouldn't have thought him capable of writing such a mean-spirited tirade against Media Matters for trying to break through the knee jerk defense of AP going on among the big name stars of the media insiders and inject some much needed perspective.

Let's review the facts one more time. The AP didn't break the second coming of The Pentagon Papers with their story. They exposed an important counter-terrorism operation based solely on leaked information which ultimately led to to the outing of a CIA asset who had infiltrated an active terrorist group. Jack Shafer explains why that matters:

To begin with, the perpetrators of a successful double-agent operation against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula would not want to brag about their coup for years. Presumably, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula will now use the press reports to walk the dog back to determine whose misplaced trust allowed the agent to penetrate it. That will make the next operation more difficult. Other intelligence operations — and we can assume they are up and running — may also become compromised as the press reports give al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula new clues.

Likewise, the next time the CIA or foreign intelligence agency tries to recruit a double agent, the candidate will judge his handlers wretched secret keepers, regard the assignment a death mission and seek employment elsewhere.

Last, the leaks of information — including those from the lips of Brennan, Clarke and King — signal to potential allies that America can’t be trusted with secrets. “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk,” as Obama put it today in a news conference.

Alex sneers at Media Matters' question, “Is this story about a government source blowing the whistle on government misbehavior, or about a source gratuitously exposing ongoing counter-terrorism operations?” He finds it useless because no liberal wants Media Matters to be the boss of their talking points. Well they probably don't think they need Alex to be the boss of how they choose to influence the public discourse either. Better Alex should answer the question.

Kevin Drum confirms the entire undercover operation had to be shut down and the double agent was put in jeopardy. If the AP hadn't built the bandwagon with their irresponsible traffic baiting, this operation would still be delivering useful intelligence on terrorist plots. So tell me how was the public interest served by the AP story? And where do you draw the line between national security and profit seeking opportunism by the media? If AP hadn't published the leak, the government wouldn't be looking for the leaker and their records wouldn't been subpoenaed.

As I've said before, I've been fighting for First Amendment rights all my life. I worked my heart out in twenty years working for the ACLU and in private practice defending those rights. I want to protect the freedom of the press, but with that freedom comes responsibility to use it for the public good. I was outraged when Valerie Plame was outed by our government for political gain. Why shouldn't I be equally outraged when the media outs an agent in an active operation simply for their own profit? Dumping on Media Matters for trying to hold the press accountable for irresponsible reporting doesn't answer the question.

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