politics

One Man’s Leak Is Another Man’s Water Fountain

Porter Goss suggested Friday that leakers "are not noble, honorable or patriotic." But how does that square with recent revelations about classified information the White House has chosen to make public?

February 13, 2006

On Friday, Porter Goss, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times arguing that leaks of classified information to the media are threatening to undermine the ongoing attempts to combat terrorism. Apparently Goss had been spurred into editorializing, in part, by a brewing diplomatic crisis. To wit: according to Goss, several of his foreign counterparts had recently told him, “You Americans can’t keep a secret.”

Of course, the old “you can’t keep a secret” line has been around for a long time — at least as long as elementary school playgrounds have been. Nevertheless, the familiar taunt apparently hit a nerve with Goss, who responded by promising to help round up the American secret-breakers and throw them in prison.

“Since becoming director, I have filed criminal reports with the Department of Justice because of such compromises,” wrote Goss. “That department is committed to working with us to investigate these cases aggressively.”

“[T]hose who choose to bypass the law,” wrote Goss, “and go straight to the press are not noble, honorable or patriotic.”

They may, however, have other qualities admired by Goss. More specifically, they may be Goss’ bosses.

At least, that was the persuasive argument made Friday evening by Jonathan Alter. Writing on Newsweek‘s Web site, Alter pointed out how in a recent speech, President Bush had done almost exactly what Goss was bellyaching about.

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“For crass political reasons — namely to advance his position on the National Security Agency spying story — the president chose to use a speech to the National Guard Association to disclose details of a 2002 ‘shoe bomb’ plot to blow up the U.S. Bank Tower, the tallest building in Los Angeles,” Alter wrote. “While the plot had been revealed in general terms in the past, the White House this week arranged for Bush’s counterterrorism adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, to explain to reporters in a conference call exactly the kind of details that Goss claimed on the op-ed page helped the enemy.”

“Goss, meanwhile, is left hanging out to dry,” added Alter. “[H]e seems to be calling for more criminalization of intelligence leaks in one part of the paper while the president leaks like a sieve in the other.”

Ditto for the vice president, whose sieve-like qualities were recently reported by National Journal.

“Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been ‘authorized’ by Cheney and other White House ‘superiors’ in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration’s use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records,” wrote Murray Waas this past Thursday.

“Beyond what was stated in the court paper, say people with firsthand knowledge of the matter, Libby also indicated what he will offer as a broad defense during his upcoming criminal trial: that Vice President Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials had earlier encouraged and authorized him to share classified information with journalists to build public support for going to war,” added Waas.

So what does Goss think about his bosses’ apparent leakiness? He doesn’t say specifically, though he does suggest that, “The terrorists gain an edge when they keep their secrets and we don’t keep ours.”

Fair enough. But what happens when the president spills one of the terrorists’ secrets? Does that give us an edge, or them an edge, or neither, or both?

Perhaps Goss can sort that one out for us in another op-ed — right after he gets the new talking points.

Felix Gillette writes about the media for The New York Observer.