Week+8+-+Cohen+II

__**Week 8 - Cohen II.**__

STONE and VLADECK

**Cody Witko:** “The government has greater (though not unlimited) need to restrict the speech of its employees than to restrict the speech of individuals generally. This is so because the government’s interests in regulating the speech of its employees are different from its interest in regulation speech generally”. However, “the government’s restrictions must be reasonable” (6). So it would seem Stone implies that legally, “a public employee who knowingly discloses classified info. to a journalist for the purpose of publication may be disciplined, discharged, criminally punished, if the info was not already… public… and has the potential to harm national security, unless the disclosure reveals unlawful government action” (26). Stone continues to say that even in order to disclose unlawful action the employee must adhere to and comply with and rules and procedures set in place for this type of action (I assume a lot of internal affair outfits implement these types of rules and procedures). So one of my questions is what if the employee terminates their job and contract in order to become an ordinary citizen, can they then disclose information? Most likely there is some clause in the contract that does not allow for this, yet to me it seems that if I were in a situation to disclose information that I would have wanted to know as a mere citizen, do I not have a duty to do such, especially in the case of unlawful action? Pubic employees with access to classified information are put in a situation that evokes the exact dilemma of duty to the sovereign (disclosing information that they would have wanted to know if they were not an employee) vs. Duty to the government (keeping information hidden for the productivity/utility of the government which is suppose to aid and represent the sovereign). In our country of democracy and freedom I think it impertinent for those who have the best intentions for the general welfare of the populous, coupled with the position to disclose information that they deem necessary for public scrutiny, to have some sort of protection, at least from criminal liability. In criminal law there must be act and intent that is proven to suffice for the commission of a crime. If the person in question obviously commits the act (the disclosure of info.) but with full intent to aid the citizens of this country (as apposed to the intent to harm or any other negative intent) do they not deserve, even in our current form of law, some sort of protection even if its only due process and a fair trial? I suppose this is somewhat already in place, yet it seems unfair that when an employee who is still a citizen is faced with a situation that may imply a duty to break a contract because of unlawful action from the government she must still conform to all rules, regulation and procedures to bring the unlawful action into sight, when all the police need is reasonable suspicion and probable cause. **Susan Thomas:** In Stone's "Government Secrecy vs. Freedom of the Press", he states: "The government can constitutionally punish the press for publishing classified information if the publisher knew that (a) it was publishing classified information, (b) the publication of which would likely result in imminent and serious harm to the national security and (c) the publication would not meaningfully contribute to the public debate." (pg. 26) Here is a link (which I found via Wikileaks' home page) to a video taken from a US Apache helicopter in 2007 (only recently released) of them shooting into a group of people on a street, mistaking a camara for a weapon, killing two Reuters photographers and severely wounding two children. [] This attack was unprovoked and the government claims it was following the rules of engagement, calling the victims "insurgents", "anti-Iraqi forces" and a "hostile force". There is also a video of a speech given by an eye-witness. The video of the killings would undoubtedly have been (at one time, at least) considered "classified"; however, I am uncertain whether it will result in "imminent and serious harm to the national security". Naturally, it could menaingfully contribute to public debate, as evidenced by the eyewitness video. You asked us to take issue with Stone's conclusion, which, I assume, is the above. I don't really take issue with it, but it does make me wonder about some things. For one, it doesn't seem to me that the government functions, in reality, according to the standards Stone elucidates. Many of their attempts to keep these files (and others) secret seem to be based on self-protection rather than the protection of national security. After all, why did it take three years for Reuters to be able to get access to the video via the Freedom of Information Act? Secondly, Stone says the government usually punishes its employees rather than the press for dissemination of classified information. However, that does not seem to be true in the case of Wikileaks. Is there a way for the US government to prosecute Wikileaks for the publication of these sorts of videos or documents, even though Wikileaks is not under US jurisdiction (aside from denying them access to servers)? How does the fact that these documents have been downloaded hundreds of times combined with the vastness of the internet and social media affect the government's ability to stem the flow of information?

**Bryce Blankenship:** Stone writes on page 10, and similarly again on 26, “ A public employee who knowingly discloses classified information to a journalist for the purpose of publication may be disciplined, discharged, and/or criminally pubished if the information was not already in the public domain and its disclosure has the potential to harm the national security, unless the disclosure reveals unlawful government action and the employee has complied with reasonable whistleblower procedures governing the disclosure of such information.” Throughout the reading, and not surprisingly so, I routinely reverted back to my limited knowledge of the leaked diplomatic cables via, a public employee, Bradley Manning and Wikileaks. Though my understanding is epistemically weak on the subject, due to what I do know is through cable-news networks reporting on the issue, limited discussion in this course, and outside reading I was struck by one main issue, which will be addressed momentarily. Bradley Manning is being held for various indictments. According to the Wikileaks website, Manning has been in jail for 665 days, and has had no trial (Wikileaks.org). The general public understands that Manning ‘put the U.S in jeopardy,’ or ‘aided and embedded’ the enemy or terrorists. Granted I am not part of the interworkings in the pentagon, army, or part of the ‘fight against terror,’ but my issue is this: not once I have felt any more in jeopardy, vulnerable, or frightened for myself or America’s national security, due to Manning’s turning over of documents. I, along with many citizens, view his act as courageous and honorable. I have never felt like Manning’s actions need, or should be disciplined. I am living the same way, and thinking the same way as to before the documents were released. AND, if the government is representative of ‘me’ and people like ‘me,’ then ought it be the case that our voices are heard as well. It seems that Manning’s detention (possibly for the entirety of his life) is decided not by a representative notion of justice, but by the above-power-back-halls of Military Court Marshall. It can be reasonably assumed that there is a like-mindedness with those in the military desiring to prosecute and use Manning as a scapegoat for the embarrassment they have suffered due to the leaked cables. His actions, arguably and reasonably, did not jeopardize the U.S any more than news clips (written or spoken) and sounds bites of politicians, military members, and the public do on a daily basis. Manning, himself, did not publish the material, and it is arguable if Wikileaks is even a form of journalism. The documents that Manning gave to Wikileaks were already written by government officials, meaning that Manning had noting new to contribute in the way of harmful tendencies towards national security. It is harmful in and of itself to be at war. Sorry this post was a bit long and a bit disjointed—I have many thoughts bouncing around after reading this past week.


 * Brendan O'Donnell **:

In section II.b, Stone concludes that there is absolute freedom of the press to publish, and that the only power lies within the government to prosecute the leakers and whistleblowers and make the punishments sufficient enough to effective stop leaks. “The solution, which has stood us in good stead for more than two centuries, is to reconcile the irreconcilable values of secrecy and accountability by guaranteeing both a strong authority of the government to prohibit leaks and an expansive right of the press to publish them” (13). While I agree with his three necessary conditions for punishing the press, where “the government must prove that the publisher new (a) it was publishing classified information, (b) the publication of which would result in likely, imminent, and serious harm to the national security, and (c) the publication of which would not meaningfully contribute to public debate” (15-16). I have some problems with endorsing the view Stone takes towards the ability to punish public employees. In regards to Wikileaks, this situation in apparent with Bradley Manning, who is the alleged source of The Collateral Murder video, the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs, and the huge Diplomatic Cable leak. Stone argues that exposing illegal actions taken by the government trumps the need for national security; “There is at least one situation, however, in which a government employee must have a First Amendment right to disclose classified information, even if the disclosure might harm the national security. This arises when the disclosure reveals unlawful government conduct” (9). Bradley Manning (allegedly) obviously exposed conduct that is illegal under international law, such as the attack on the rescue van during the Collateral Murder video. Furthermore, you could argue the wars themselves aren’t legal for a variety of reasons, most broadly that both were wars of aggression, which are forbidden by the UN Charter of which the US is a signatory and which therefore make it illegal under US law. However, if you do grant the legitimacy of the wars, it’s true that there is a great deal of documents which do not reveal illegal conduct; a great deal of mundane or trivial documents that do not contribute meaningfully to the public debate. And of course, there’s arguments for the harm these releases cause the US, though there’s been no actualization of this concern. My principle concern is Stone’s emphasis that the public employee must exhaust all reasonable procedures to question the legality of the program; in his words: “the employee has complied with reasonable whistleblower procedures governing the disclosure of such information” (10). If Bradley Manning, a low-level soldier had questioned the legal authority of what was in his leak, he’d have been shot down, his concerns going unheard, and his clearance would be revoked. It’d be suicide for a public employee to question such things if you believe that the power structure floats upwards and it’s the people on top who are concerned with keeping things secret. He couples this with the leak having “the potential to harm the national security,” which is vague and can be argued for just about anything that the government does classify. So, is Stone right to say that a whistleblower must first exhaust the proper channels for questioning the legality of some practice before being allowed to leak? Or should the actual illegality of practices exposed by the acid test to determine a possible punishment for a public employee?


 * Ben Gearheard**

Stone’s conclusion in section ii.b is that “the solution, … is to reconcile the irreconcilable values of secrecy and accountability by guaranteeing both a strong authority of the government to prohibit leaks and an expansive right of the press to publish them.” (p.13)

The internet has presented a challenge to this conclusion- it seems that the existence of Wikileaks represents a very powerful tool given to the press, legal or not, that could unsettle the balance between the government’s right to secrecy and the public’s right to know things relevant to a public debate. An example would be the transference of 250,000 secret government documents by Private Manning, containing embarrassing comments about foreign leaders. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning). Such a release would only have marginal value to real public debate, but //isn’t it in the public interest for those documents to be kept secret?// It hardly seems like a good strategy to tell one whom with you wish to negotiate what exactly your motives are. //How can we classify Wikileaks in Stone’s terms?// The situation serves to further blur the line between espionage and journalism- acting as couriers for secret documents provided by whistleblowers & hackers, delivering them to recipient journalists. If the people running Wikileaks are not public employees, they can’t be prosecuted for breach of contract with the government. They are not spies, if a spy is someone who intends to distribute classified information secretly, only to a foreign government. They aren’t even journalists, if a journalist is someone who interprets data and reports it for a target audience, rather letting traditional news sources do the interpretation of the confidential information. Stone’s paper doesn’t talk about this middle role, only the relationship between the provider and recipient, and Wikileaks is sitting in a fairly gray area here. //If Wikileaks can be prosecuted, what for?//

“The classification system is a highly imperfect guide to the need for confidentiality. The concept of “reasonable expectation of harm to national security” is inherently vague and amorphous. It is impossible to know from this standard how likely, imminent, or grave the potential harm must actually be. Moreover, the classification process is poorly designed and sloppily implemented. Predictably, the government tends to over-classify information. An employee charged with the task of classifying information inevitably will err on the side of over-classification because no employee wants to be responsible for under-classification. In addition, we know from experience that public officials have often abused the classification system to hide from public scrutiny their own misjudgments, incompetence, or venality.” From Stone I.C In continuation with the last sentence, the Executive Branch, namely, the President, is given a power known as the Executive Privilege, a right given to the President to be shielded from any disclosure of any of the President's speech, in short, allowing complete secrecy. This was challenged under the Nixon years during the Watergate scandal, which lead to the ruling of Nixon vs. US '74, defining the privilege under the areas of foreign relations, military, law enforcement, and deliberative process. Later, during the ruling under the Epsy Case in '92, distinction was made between communication and deliberation, where communication was not protected from scrutiny, but deliberation was. The recent developments under Bush and Obama attempted to extend this privilege to all members of the Executive Branch, claiming they are all representatives of the President. Finally, by the House vs. Miers&Bolten, a trial with regards to a political scandal, ruling of '08, it was decided that the privilege did not extend to federal employees in the Executive Branch, but it did rule that any proceedings or trials dealing with them and other branches of government can be protected behind closed door trials, in essence not allowing the press in to report, and still keeping the secrecy within the government and away from the public. Ok, given that final development, there seems to be a paradox; the “misjudgments, incompetence, or venality” which come under question are both protected and not protected; not protected from the government, but still protected from the public, and in most cases, the press foremost. Are these not the foremost which should be available to the public in a representative democracy? With regards to what Stone later mentions also in section III about the blanket rules which regulate speech by not violating the First Amendment, like the prohibition of burning a flag under an open fire statute, when in essence the same is seemingly occurring here, that is the denial of what should be public information under the guise of protecting the government. Another issue is the question arising from this on the administration of justice proper; can it happen without the press gaining access?
 * Randall Gunn:**

On page 10 Stone summarizes his view on the rights of an individual when disclosing illegal acts by the government as follows; “A public employee who knowingly discloses classified information to a journalist for the purpose of publication may be disciplined, discharged, and/or criminally punished if the information was not already in the public domain and its disclosure has the potential to harm the national security unless the disclosure reveals unlawful government action…”
 * Travis Dawson:**

Although this sounds nice on paper, with the WikiLeaks phenomenon this guideline has not been followed. Private Bradley Manning is facing court martial and up to 52 years in prison for leaking information to WikiLeaks even though the information leaked shows not only unethical actions but clearly unlawful actions. Now Stone does go on to say that the whistleblower must follow reasonable procedures when disclosing such information, but who decides what is reasonable? And as far as I know all this kid did was give the information to a place that will distribute it to be published, how is that not reasonable?

My question is, because Manning gave this information to an international organization instead of say, The New York Times, does this standard not apply? Even though Manning is an American citizen does the situation change because he is dealing with a foreign entity that is not protected by the constitution?

On page 5 Stone lists the second reason why the government may sometimes restrict what otherwise would be the First Amendment rights of public employees. He goes on to explain, "If a public employee gains access to confidential information only because of his public employment, then prohibiting him from disclosing that information to anyone outside the government might be said not to restrict his First Amendment rights at all, because he had no right to know the information in the first place." I can't tell if this is a sarcastic comment or a genuine claim because it seems totally ridiculous to me: //he had no right to know the information in the first place.// How could that be true? If a governmental employee doesn't have the right to know information about the government, who does? Perhaps what needs to be more specifically defined is who exactly is a government employee. Technically, all those who compose the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches are employed by the government that the general public funds and elects. Stone's point about the inconsistency of what is determined classified, and exactly how classified, information is highlights this problem. Who has a "right" to know information about the government within government itself? The whole essay is of course a discussion about the delicate line between how government information is shared and who is punishable for disseminating it legally or not to the public, but who actually possesses the right to know these things initially while it still remains only within the government? For example, if you're a government employee who discovers powerful information and decides to pass it along to someone who's authoritatively above you, do you lose your right to know about the information at that point? Regardless of free press issues, can the government take away the right a government employee has to knowledge he or she independently discovered once they share it with someone who has more power than they do?
 * Emily McCormick**


 * Tim Johnson**

Quoting Potter Stewart on the Pentagon Papers case, Stone says "the Executive is correct with respect to some of the documents involved. But I cannot say that disclosure of any (emphasis added) of them will surely result in... damage to our Nation..." (Stone 11). This clearly intersects with the nature of the government's request for prior restraint against the Times publishing any more information culled from the Pentagon Papers; my own reading of Potter Stewart suggests that, had the government sought injunctions against specific portions of the Pentagon Papers being published on the grounds that they would "result in... damage to our Nation," he would have been willing to support granting such injunctions, but because the injunctions were for the Papers as a whole, Potter Stewart was unable to grant such a request. Thus, it seems to me that, should the government seek to prevent the release of information by Wikileaks (assuming that the government has that option, a question I will return to momentarily), it would be forced to request blocks on certain specific parts of the information in the hands of Wikileaks (I am thinking here specifically about the information leaked by Bradley Manning). Further, those specific portions would have to represent a clear danger of imminent, grave harm to the security of the United States as a nation. One of the most instantly obvious possibilities to my mind would be the Rules of Engagement that currently apply to US personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan; should the ROE be released, it would give insurgents a significant tactical advantage in terms of knowing exactly what lines not to cross while operating against US forces to prevent being engaged by those forces.

A more interesting question for me, however, is whether or not Wikileaks can be defined as a journalistic entity, a member of the press, and thus a thing granted the protection of the First Amendment. Even given Wikileaks's position as a foreign (probably? the internet can make definitions HARD!) entity, foreign press organs operating within the United States have, it seems to me, been granted the same protections under the First Amendment as domestic ones; in other words, as best I can tell, as long as a foreign journalist obeys the law of the land, he may investigate, write, and publish the same things any American journalist could. Thus, if Wikileaks is indeed a journalistic entity, it ought to enjoy the same First Amendment protection that the New York Times does, and that (I assume) the Guardian of the UK does. However, I am not so certain that Wikileaks can actually be classed as a journalistic entity at all. After all, Wikileaks's own press releases indicate that it has "partners" (2nd paragraph following this link: http://wikileaks.org/the-spyfiles.html) with which it works that are actual journalistic entities; Wikileaks itself does not publish pieces of investigative journalism, but rather serves as a clearinghouse of information for others to use in publishing such pieces. Further, the idea that a journalistic entity would need to issue press releases is more than a little counterintuitive. I may be in error here regarding what sorts of things are actually afforded protection as members of the press, but I cannot stop wondering whether or not Wikileaks is one of those things.

SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/syringa/Desktop/%20Wiki%20Leaks%20PHIL%20march%2020.doc// // **Aly Lamar -** // In November, 2010 Wiki Leaks obtained more than 250,000 secret diplomatic documents. Tom Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive said that he was mixed on the release of the information - he disagreed with WikiLeaks' "reckless methodology" saying, "they're not about creating the rule-of-law process or making the Freedom of Information Act work, where you have a dialogue with the government, the government gets a chance to censor the stuff that would put anybody at risk.” (Nov. 29, 2010 NPR TotN interview) Stone clarifies for us, that there is one situation where a government employee has a First Amendment right to disclose classified information (even if the disclosure may harm national security) and that is when the disclosure reveals “unlawful government conduct.” My question has to do with the challenging conflict that occurs while WikiLeaks is providing a "secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to journalists" via an electronic dropbox (WikiLeaks website. This technological advancement means government employees do not need to rely on their First Amendment rights to disclose classified information and therefore, it may about embarrassing diplomatic comments or disagreeable government actions, but not necessarily "unlawful government conduct." Focusing on pages 10 - 13 of Stone's discussion, I think the WikiLeaks staff would disagree that those are the limiting factors for leaking government information and that other factors, such as human rights issues, ethical standards, and other matters of public interest, are also necessary to leak to the public - to get into the public discourse. So, with similar argument to the analogy Stone provides of a non-government employee, if "the journalist to whom he discloses the list and the trade journal that publishes it are not answerable to the employer" (Stone p. 5-6) //are they (and here I mean WikiLeaks) therefore not (ever?) accountable?//

//**Beth Ropski:**// //“A public employee does not have a First Amendment right to second-guess the classification system. As long as the conditions of potential harm and secrecy are satisfied, the employee has no constitutional right to disclose classified information and then assert in his defense that the information was insufficiently dangerous or too valuable to public debate to justify secrecy. A central goal of the classification system is to avoid such //ad hoc// judgments, and courts generally should not be in the business of second-guessing the classifiers. There is a fundamental disadvantage in this approach. As we have seen, the disclosure of confidential information may be both potentially harmful to the national security and quite valuable to public debate. Consider, for example, information relating to (a) secret understandings with other nations, (b) evaluations of new weapons systems, (c) plans for shooting down hijacked airplanes, (d) evaluations of the adequacy of private industry’s protection of nuclear power plants and (e) government policies on the use of torture. One might reasonably conclude that some or all of this information should be available to the public to enable informed public deliberation. But the approach to public employees outlined above empowers the government to forbid the disclosure of such information” (Stone 8).

While a public employee does not have the 1st Amend right to disclose these types of classified information, it seems that if a private employee somehow gets their hands on a piece of it, they should, legally, be able to distribute it. I agree with Stone in the sense that there is a huge disadvantage to public employees being unable to share ‘classified’ information though. In the types in information he listed above, it seems that much of it would not put any citizen of our country in danger; for example, ‘(e) government policies on the use of torture’. I feel like this is already a large problem that has been attempted to be addressed by WikiLeaks. While I have not read much from the site, one section that caught my eye was the one on Guantanamo. ([|http://wikileaks.org/gitmo/#]) I, personally, am not clear at all on the US government’s policies on torture. I just know that torture happens, and probably happens more than anyone would guess. In reading through this article, one paragraph that stood out to me was the one on Abu Zubaydah. It stated that he was “seized in Pakistan in March 2002” and “spent four and a half years in secret CIA prisons, including facilities in Thailand and Poland. Subjected to waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning, on 83 occasions in CIA custody August 2002, Abu Zubaydah was moved to Guantánamo with 13 other "high-value detainees" in September 2006.” (See: http://ccrjustice.org/files/05-30-2005_bradbury_40pg_OLC%20torture%20 memos.pdf) This event alone seems like grounds to create concern in many people. Also, it does not seem like a kind of information that could result in harm coming to a US citizen, merely harm to a government who could be accused of using inhumane ways to extract information. I believe that torture is not the way to get information out of a person because if one is subjected to enough pain, etc, they are probably going to be willing to admit anything you want them to, whether it is true or false. To, somewhat, conclude, I think that there is definitely an issue with the classification system in relation to public employees. I also think that it is a difficult issue to address though. Where do we draw the lines in morals? Who gets to make the rules of what is publicized and what is not? Should it be legal to have the government making privacy rules to protect themselves? As a public in a supposedly democratic nation, should we not have the right to know “classified” information that will or will not result in harm for someone, even ourselves?

====In part II, Section D of his essay Stone discusses the classic/traditional examples of things that are not/should not be protected as free speech. He says those are transport times and troop locations in war time, and more recently giving the names of covert operatives in the field or publishing the fact that we have broken the code of the enemy. He says that it is because, “…the publication of such information could instantly alert the enemy and endanger American lives” and, “…the information does not meaningfully contribute to public debate.” He does go on to say after the fact that troop locations can be released after the attack or battle happens because the outcome is of public debate depending on victory or loss, people will talk and discuss it different ways. I know that I would not want to have my name published as a CIA operative if I was in deep cover somewhere because it would put my life at risk. In my opinion it is not only the rights of the publication that matter but also the humanity and morality of the workers at said publication. What it comes down to is the clash between getting the story out first and is it morally human to release info that will possibly lead the death of many people. Journalistic ethics is what needs to be flushed out when it comes to what is ok to and not ok to publish, and not so much what is their right to publish what. My question to the class is what is OK as a person to publish and what is not.====
 * Brian Malone **

When discussing the issue of the legality of publishing classified government documents, Stone state: “ To summarize, a public employee who knowingly discloses classified information to a journalist for the purpose of publication may be disciplined, discharged, and/or criminally punished if the information was not already in the public domain and its disclosure has the potential to harm the national security, unless the disclosure reveals unlawful government action and the employee has complied with reasonable whistleblower procedures governing the disclosure of such information.” This is useful in terms of establishing guidelines towards when a public employee is liable for publishing classified information, but it still seems like it allows for a bit of a grey area. It seems like you could imagine a scenario where there is a piece of information that is classified that covers up the illegality of an action of a government official, while at the same time containing content that, if published, would greatly threaten national security. It seems like the public employee could go through “reasonable whistleblower procedures” and be shut down due to the cover-up over the illegality issue, which would then lead him to be able to //legally// publish the material, but still be liable because of the grand threat to national security that would result from his/her action. It seems like it could be viewed that national security should be held in higher regard than revealing political scandal.
 * Tyler Morrison**


 * Matthew Baughman**

Let us consider the implications of the following paragraph and the conclusion established at the end of B - "A fundamental question posed by the Pentagon Papers controversy is who should decide whether classified information should be made public. In the first instance, it would seem that our elected officials, who are charged with the responsibility of protecting the national security, must have the authority to decide such matters. But we know that our elected officials may sometimes have mixed motives for keeping secrets. They may be concerned not only with protecting the national security, but also with covering up their own mistakes, misjudgments and wrongdoing. To give them the final say would risk depriving the American people of critical information about the conduct of their elected officials." While there are competing standards from too much secrecy in the realm of government and too much transparency in the realm of press. We find an extreme counter-example in the case of Bradley Manning. If we do not define what "Justice" is then we are left with competing standards. Whereas the NY Times is able to publish the information while Bradley Manning is sentenced to death in a military tribunal it seems something has gone wrong. How would we account for this outcome in this "balance"? If the government breaks this rule for the "whistleblower" where there is no injury to the U.S.'s defense, ought we search for another solution? The historical argument that we haven't had any problems with this system yet seems fairly weak. One example i would give for historical weakness in our political system is that of the electoral vote mirroring the national popular vote. We know this is not true empirically as of the 2000 election, even with the changes made after this happening in the 1800's toward a more populous system. It seems to me that even one exception opens the door to further abuses. What possible reforms could be made to prevent this conclusion in all possible worlds? Could an independent committee be instituted like an ombudsman? Or should we be satisfied with the results of the system?


 * Kristopher Kinzler**

In II.B, Stone toys with the precarious balance between the press’ freedom to publish retrieved classified information, yet the illegality of a government employee to send that information to the press. “In the Pentagon Papers case, the Supreme Court held that although elected officials have broad authority to keep classified information secret, once that information gets into the hands of the press the government has very limited authority to prevent its further dissemination.” The reasons he gives for this are that (1) a government has a need for secrecy and will ere on the side of over-classification in order to keep the nation safe. It’s easiest for public employees to follow the blanket rule, don’t reveal classified information, rather than letting them use their judgment as to what should be released to the press. (2) And that the press has a first amendment right to publish information pertaining to the government that is “of value to public debate”. Unless, of course, (as we heard over and over) “the government can prove that the publication poses a clear and present danger of serious harm.” My question is this, can we incite wikileaks for publishing information that is not relevant for public debate? Some of the stuff published is just dumb secrets (ones we all have) that can merely ruin reputations. I know that a lot of good was done in revealing war crimes committed by the U.S. but is there a need to reign in on some of the published information that isn’t worth reporting by U.S. press standards. Should Bradely Manning have given the information over to a paper like the NYT initially? Or is “public debate” just too broad of a term, encompassing foreign relations between the U.S. and the Middle East, as well as juicy gossip on which diplomats are least liked.