Transparency, National Security and Shield Laws

Asymmetric Information has an excellent article on what journalistic ethics are and are not, much to the chagrin of Juan Cole. As I stated a few days ago, I would not make it illegal for the press to publish anything, so long as they're willing to defend it's factuality in court. That they publish a given piece of information may disclose all sorts of moral and ethical failings on their part, and they perhaps should face economic consequences as a result, but should not be subject to legal action for the act of publishing factual information that someone would rather remain private.



The immediate issue raised by Ms. Galt has to do with writings that were supposed to be limited in distribution that were exposed to a far wider audience than intended, but it has much broader applicability. To my mind, it includes everything, includes national security information. Those who divulge classified information to the press should face severe legal consequences, which is one of many reasons I oppose shield laws for journalists or anyone else, but the journalists themselves are doing their jobs. They signed no loyalty oath, promised no secrecy, obtained no security clearance. Indeed, their livelihood is something of the opposite.



And as for national security information itself, better that we know it is compromised and how it was compromised than think it wasn't. If a journalist could find out about it, it wasn't as secure as it needed to be, was it?



And if partisans of one political party are willing to spend time in prison to bring things to the light of public scrutiny, that is a valid point in favor of their viewpoint. If they are only willing to betray national security in order to score political points if they can escape the legal consequences, that is an equally big point against them.